Strategic clarity | KRG Hospitality

August 20, 2024by David Klemt David Klemt No Comments

Why You Should Invest in Strategy

Why You Should Invest in Strategy and Foresight

by Doug Radkey

A surprising trend is emerging: Many aspiring entrepreneurs, restaurateurs, hoteliers, and seasoned business owners are hesitant to invest in two key elements.

Those elements? Strategy and foresight.

Despite understanding the importance of strategic direction, they often prioritize more immediate needs such as hiring talent, refining processes, and other operational aspects. However, these efforts, while crucial, can lack cohesion and effectiveness without a well-defined strategy guiding them.

Financing can be tight but that’s not often the issue. I’ve witnessed business owners eagerly spend $25,000 on new tables and chairs—when they weren’t necessary—while hesitating to invest the same amount in strategic planning that could yield a much higher return on investment.

It’s even more surprising to see new entrepreneurs pour over $1 million into launching a new bar or restaurant, only to balk at a $25,000, comprehensive strategy package.

This package, which includes a feasibility study, concept development playbook, brand strategy, marketing playbook, tech-stack playbook, financial playbook, and business strategy playbook, is often dismissed as “not in the budget.”

Yet, this investment in strategy is crucial for setting a strong foundation, and ensuring both short-term and long-term success. It’s like navigating without a map, or building a house without a blueprint; there may be some progress, but without a clear vision and destination, there’s a much greater risk of veering off course.

In terms of restaurants, bars, or hotels, a lack of strategy and foresight leads an owner to crumble their business to the ground.

This article explores the reasons why investing in strategy and foresight is not just a wise choice but an essential one for ensuring success and stability in an increasingly unpredictable industry.

What are Strategy and Foresight?

To overcome the laundry list of potential obstacles in this industry, you must prioritize strategic thinking, invest in the necessary resources and expertise, and cultivate a culture that values long-term planning.

No matter whether you’re starting, stabilizing, or scaling your brand, you need both strategy and foresight on your side.

Foresight

Foresight is the process of anticipating and envisioning potential future scenarios, trends, and developments. It involves analyzing emerging patterns, uncertainties, and possible disruptions to understand what the future might hold for you and your bar, restaurant, or hotel.

Foresight is not about predicting the future with certainty but about exploring a range of possibilities, and preparing for each of those scenarios.

Key Characteristics:

Explorative: Foresight explores multiple potential futures rather than focusing on a single expected outcome.
Long Term: Typically, a focus on the long-term implications of current trends and decisions.
Proactive: Foresight encourages proactive thinking and planning to anticipate changes, and prepare for various possibilities.
Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis: A combination of qualitative insights and quantitative data to create comprehensive future scenarios.

Strategy

Strategy, on the other hand, is the formulation and implementation of a plan to achieve specific goals and objectives. It involves making deliberate choices and decisions to allocate resources, navigate challenges, and capitalize on opportunities.

Strategy is focused on setting a clear direction, and determining the actions needed to reach desired outcomes.

Key Characteristics:

Directive: Strategy provides a clear roadmap and actionable steps to achieve goals.
Focused on Execution: The practical aspects of how to achieve desired outcomes, including resource allocation, prioritization, and performance measurement.
Short to Medium-Term: Strategy often addresses short to medium-term objectives, aligning current actions with long-term vision.
Decision Making: Strategic decisions based on the current understanding of the environment, resources, and capabilities.

Why You Should Integrate Strategy and Foresight

When you combine strategy with foresight you and your business can make more informed decisions. An informed decision is the consideration of both the present context and potential future developments.

Foresight provides valuable insights into emerging trends and uncertainties, helping your brand anticipate challenges and opportunities. This integration ensures that strategic decisions are based on a comprehensive understanding of possible future scenarios. Strategic decision reduce the risk of being caught off guard by unexpected changes.

Integrating foresight into the strategic planning process enhances your businesses adaptability and resilience. Foresight allows you to explore a range of possible futures, and develop contingency plans for different scenarios.

This proactive approach enables you and your team to respond quickly and effectively to changes in the external environment. Whether technological advancements, market shifts, or sociographic adjustments, you’ll be prepared to adapt quickly.

Innovation and Risk Management

Foresight provides a long-term vision, while strategy focuses on short-term actions. By integrating the two, your hospitality business can align its immediate goals and actions with its long-term vision. Doing so ensures consistency and coherence in decision-making, and helps you stay on track toward achieving your long-term objectives. It also helps bridge the gap between future aspirations and current realities, creating a more cohesive and actionable playbook.

When you act with foresight, you encourage the exploration of new ideas and potential innovations by identifying emerging trends and disruptions. Integrating foresight with strategy enables your business to pursue innovative solutions proactively, and capitalize on emerging opportunities. This combination fosters a culture of innovation, and encourages you and your team to think beyond the present, seeking ways to stay ahead of the competition continually.

Foresight helps identify potential risks and uncertainties that may impact your business in the future. Incorporate these insights into the strategic planning process so you can develop strategies for your business that mitigate or manage risks.

A proactive approach to risk management reduces vulnerability, and enhances organizational stability.

Foresight and Strategy Sample for Starting a Hospitality Brand

Strategy

Feasibility Study: Assess market demand, demographics, competition, and potential profitability. This foundational step provides a realistic view of the business opportunity and potential challenges.

Brand and Concept Development: Define the unique selling proposition (USP), story, target market, and brand identity. Develop a detailed playbook outlining the concept, including menu/room design, service style, and intended ambiance.

Site Selection and Design: Choose a location based on the completed feasibility study. Design the space to reflect the brand’s identity and concept with a reputable designer who follows the vision.

Foresight

Market Trends Analysis: Identify emerging food and beverage trends, changes in consumer preferences, and demographic shifts. Use this information to shape the concept and offerings.

Regulatory Landscape: Anticipate potential changes in regulations related to health, safety, and licensing. Prepare to adapt to these changes to ensure compliance and minimize disruptions.

Technological Integration: Explore advancements in restaurant and hotel technology. Plan for their implementation by developing a tech-stack that enhances the guest experience, and operational efficiency.

Foresight and Strategy Sample for Stabilizing a Hospitality Brand

Strategy

Operational Efficiency: Streamline processes, optimize inventory management, and implement cost-control measures. Review financial performance regularly to identify areas for improvement.

Marketing and Branding: Develop a cohesive marketing strategy to build brand awareness and loyalty. Leverage social media, local events, and partnerships to attract and retain guests.

Guest Experience: Standardize service protocols, and enhance staff training. Focus on delivering consistent and high-quality experiences to build a loyal guest base.

Foresight

Scenario Planning: Develop contingency plans for potential disruptions, such as economic downturns, supply chain issues, or changes in consumer behavior. This preparedness helps the business remain resilient in the face of uncertainty.

Competitive Analysis: Monitor competitors’ strategies and market positioning continuously. Adapt and differentiate the brand’s offerings to maintain a competitive edge.

Guest Feedback and Data Analysis: Collect and analyze guest feedback to identify emerging preferences, and areas for improvement. Use this data to refine offerings and enhance guest satisfaction.

Foresight and Strategy Sample for Scaling a Hospitality Brand

Strategy

Expansion Planning: Evaluate potential markets for expansion, considering factors such as demographics, market demand, and competition with a feasibility study. Develop a scalable business model and expansion strategy.

Brand Consistency: Develop and maintain brand standards, and ensure consistency across all locations. Implement standardized operating procedures and quality control measures.

Partnerships and Collaborations: Explore strategic partnerships with suppliers, local businesses and community partners, or other brands to enhance offerings and expand reach.

Foresight

Future Market Opportunities: Identify emerging markets and growth opportunities, such as new geographic regions, niche markets, or evolving guest segments. Plan to enter these markets with tailored offerings.

Innovation and Adaptation: Foster a culture of innovation by encouraging the exploration of new ideas, products, and services. Stay ahead of industry trends and incorporate innovative solutions to differentiate the brand.

Risk Management: Assess potential risks associated with scaling, such as supply chain complexities, cultural differences, or operational challenges. Develop an outlook to mitigate these risks and ensure smooth expansion.

In Summary

The integration of strategy and foresight into your hospitality business is not a luxury but a non-negotiable.

Investing in these areas will provide your business with the tools and insights needed to navigate uncertainties, anticipate market shifts, and make informed decisions that align with your goals. Far from being mere expense lines, strategy and foresight are foundational elements that drive growth, innovation, and resilience.

Prioritize strategic planning and future-oriented thinking so your business can create a cohesive and actionable roadmap that bridges the gap between current realities and future aspirations. This investment enables you to address potential challenges, capitalize on emerging opportunities, and maintain a competitive edge in a proactive manner.

Whether starting a new venture, stabilizing your operations, or scaling your business to new heights, the integration of strategy and foresight empowers you to outperform the competition in this ever-changing environment.

Ultimately, the value of investing in strategy and foresight goes beyond immediate financial returns. This integration cultivates a culture of continuous improvement, adaptability, and forward thinking, ensuring that your business is not only prepared for the future but also positioned to shape it.

As such, you should view these investments not as costs but as crucial assets that contribute to the success and sustainability of your brand.

Image: Canva

A viewing scope looking out toward a sunrise or sunset

August 19, 2024by David Klemt David Klemt No Comments

Mindfulness Monday: Believe in Your Vision

Mindfulness Monday: Believe in Your Vision

by Jennifer Radkey

Belief is a powerful thing, a commanding and inspiring force that draws us to people who believe in their purpose or their dream wholeheartedly.

Right now, you probably have a dream, a vision for your future or your business’ future. You could go after that dream on your own. However, at some point you are going to need someone else to believe in you and your vision.

That belief, that buy in from others, will help you build your team, secure funding, and gain personal support.

If you have a vision that you want others to believe in, whether a vision for the future of your business, yourself, your community, or your family, you need to believe in it first yourself.

Doubt can be sensed. Uncertainty clouds clarity.

Before asking others to believe in and support your vision, stop and ask yourself if you truly believe in it. If not, what is stopping you?

Start there. Tackle your own uncertainties before sharing the vision with those you need to believe in you.

Alignment

So what is blocking you from truly believing in your vision?

Most likely your thoughts, mindset, and actions aren’t aligned with your vision or goals. When this occurs, you wind up sabotaging yourself.

Sometimes, we do this wittingly. However, we most often sabotage ourselves unknowingly.

For example, if you believe you are undeserving, or if your self-worth is low, you can’t believe in your vision 100 percent. Do you have thoughts similar to “I don’t think I’ll be able to pull this off,” or “be realistic, no one will ever support this dream of mine”? If so, your thoughts and mindset are not in alignment with your goals.

It’s possible you have a checklist of actions you need to complete for you to realize your dream. If you haven’t checked anything off in months, if you’re procrastinating rather than taking purposeful action, your actions are not aligned with your vision.

You need to stop standing in your own way. We all need to be mindful and stop sabotaging ourselves.

First Steps

If you have low confidence or sense of self-worth, that’s where to start. Begin by looking at ways to boost your self-image. The more you believe you are worthy, the more you will believe in your vision.

What else can stand in your way of believing in your vision? Lack of knowledge and fear of the unknown.

We see this often through our work at KRG Hospitality. Clients come to us with a vision to open a new restaurant, bar, or hotel. And while the visions are solid, many people lack operational knowledge—and therefore lack confidence in themselves to believe that their concept will be successful.

One proven solution is to complete a detailed feasibility study for our client. Feasibility studies are amazing tools that not only prove your vision and concept, but also build confidence through the power of knowledge.

Knowing exactly why a specific business will work in a certain market (or should be located elsewhere) empowers a client to understand how their concept will perform in the real world. Knowledge is power.

When you remove an obstacle as daunting as the unknown, fear subsides. You are able to focus and develop an unwavering, justified belief, and others will take note.

The Power of Belief

Truly believing in your vision will not only help others believe in it too, but it will create a ripple effect of other positive attributes.

Belief boosts resilience, and increases determination and willpower. You will view setbacks as temporary, and challenges as opportunities to shift your mindset, and grow.

Motivation will increase, and you will become less risk averse. As you step out of your comfort zone to pursue your vision, you will, ultimately, end up inspiring others while inspiring yourself.

It’s true, not everyone will believe in your dreams. You don’t need everyone to believe in them. All you need is a handful of supporters to turn vision into reality.

But to inspire those few, you will first need to inspire yourself.

So, go ahead and choose the dreams worth going after. Dedicate yourself to those dreams—you’ve got this!

Cheers to professional and personal well-being!

Image: Matt Noble on Unsplash

July 23, 2024by David Klemt David Klemt No Comments

Difference Between a Plan and Playbook

The Difference Between a Plan and a Playbook

by Doug Radkey

Sometimes AI comes up with impressive images. This is one of them.

You’ve likely heard that 80 percent of hospitality businesses fail within the first five years.

When you ask those in the industry the question of why there is such a high rate of failure, they reply with a fairly predictable list of factors. These tend to be location, concept or brand confusion, lack of service standards, toxic workplace culture, sub-par marketing efforts, and mismanaged funds.

Many operators who fail try to quickly blame external factors, such as the economy.

When you ask the next question—what are the other 20 percent of operators doing differently to surpass five years in business—you get one simple answer. The difference between those who drive a sustainable profit of 12, 15 or 20 percent (or more) and those who don’t boils down to one thing and one thing only: they have strategic clarity.

It’s not that the successful 20 percent did not battle challenges or the same tough economy or labor struggles. What they had was clarity, and a playbook detailing how to overcome a multitude of challenges.

So how do you achieve strategic clarity? Well, it’s much more than just writing—or filling out a template for—a business plan.

What is Strategic Clarity?

Strategic clarity is the comprehensive understanding and alignment within your hospitality business regarding its identity, direction, purpose, and the means to achieve its goals.

It involves clear communication and consensus on key aspects of the business, ensuring that everyone is working towards the same objectives. Below, the key components that define strategic clarity.

1. Understanding Who We Are

Core Identity: This includes the mission, vision, and core values of your business. It defines what the business stands for, and its fundamental purpose.
Strengths and Weaknesses: Recognizing the business’ strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) aids in identifying the core competencies and areas for improvement.
Culture: The shared beliefs and practices that characterize the business’ internal environment, and how it interacts with both staff and guest perceptions.

2. Knowing Where We are Going

Vision: A clear and compelling picture of what the business aspires to become in the future. It serves as a guide for choosing current and future courses of action.
Long-term Goals: Specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals that outline the desired outcomes over an extended period.
Milestones: Intermediate targets that mark progress towards the long-term goals.

3. Understanding Why We are Doing This

Purpose: The fundamental reason for the business’ existence beyond making a profit. It encompasses the broader impact the business aims to have on its community.
Motivation: The driving force behind the business’ actions and strategies. This includes the values and principles that guide decision-making, as well as behavior.
Stakeholder Alignment: Ensuring that the goals and activities of the business align with the interests and needs of its stakeholders: guests, employees, investors, and the community.

4. How We are Going to Get There

Strategy: The overarching plan that outlines how the business will achieve its vision and long-term goals. It includes the allocation of resources and the selection of strategic initiatives.
Tactics: The specific actions and steps that will be taken to implement the strategy. This involves detailed planning, delegation, resources, and execution.
Performance Metrics: The criteria and tools used to measure progress and success. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and other metrics help track the effectiveness of strategies and tactics.
Continuous Improvement: The process of regularly reviewing and refining strategies and tactics based on performance data and changing circumstances.

Strategic clarity is essential for the cohesive and effective functionality of your bar, restaurant, or hotel business. This leadership approach ensures that all members understand and are aligned with the business’ identity, direction, purpose, and methods.

By achieving strategic clarity, organizations can navigate challenges, seize opportunities, and build upon sustainable long-term success. What we have found over the years that attributes to long-term clarity and success is a series of playbooks.

Understanding Plans and Playbooks

Let’s first dive into the critical distinction between a plan and a playbook, and why this matters for your bar, restaurant, or hotel. Understanding and utilizing both can significantly impact your business’ ability to start strong, stabilize effectively, and ultimately position you to scale successfully.

A traditional business plan, as you may know it, is a document that outlines your goals, and the steps you will take to achieve them. It’s often the number one consideration to secure funding and to set strategic direction.

However, it is, more often than not, missing plenty of crucial information, strategies, and guidance that end up planting a false sense of security.

A playbook, on the other hand, is a more comprehensive guide filled with detailed processes, best practices, and adaptable strategies tailored to your specific operations. Within this dynamic industry, you need more than a standard business plan if you want to be successful.

In fact, you should have eight different playbooks in place to position yourself within the top echelon of this industry.

The Power of Playbooks in Hospitality

While plans are often static or rigid (and often forgotten about shortly after they’re written), playbooks are designed to be flexible and adaptable.

Playbooks provide a step-by-step guide, ensure consistency and efficiency, and offer adaptable strategies and best practices to start, manage, and grow effectively.

Playbooks go into more granular details, and provide actionable steps. In this way, they’re notably different from a singular business plan.

The Eight Playbooks

No matter if you are operating a coffee shop, bar, restaurant or hotel (or any other concept within the hospitality industry), the following eight playbooks should be looked at as non-negotiables.

Feasibility Study/Playbook: The foundational guide for assessing the viability of your hospitality business idea. It involves a comprehensive analysis of the market, competitive landscape, financial projections, and operational requirements. This playbook helps you determine whether your concept is realistic and profitable before committing significant resources.
Concept Playbook: Focuses on refining your hospitality business idea into a clear and compelling concept. This playbook guides you through creating a unique value proposition, defining your target market, and outlining the core elements of your business, including service style, interior design, and internal programming.
Prototype Playbook: A step-by-step guide to developing a tangible representation of your hospitality concept. This playbook helps you create a prototype that can be tested and refined before a full-scale launch. This playbook covers design specifications, operational workflows, fixtures/furniture/equipment, and detailed budgets.
Brand Strategy & Identity Playbook: Defines the strategic approach to building and maintaining a strong brand. This playbook covers the creation of your brand identity, messaging, and positioning to ensure consistent and impactful brand communication. It involves color psychology, core values, mission statements, brand experiences, and more.
Marketing Playbook: Outlines the strategies and tactics to attract, build, and retain your target guests. This playbook provides a roadmap for creating and executing effective marketing campaigns across various channels. It provides a step-by-step guide on content, social media management, database building, email marketing, partnerships, and community activations, along with detailed guest journey maps.
Tech-stack Playbook: Provides guidance on selecting and implementing the correct technology solutions to enhance your hospitality operations. This playbook ensures that your technology infrastructure supports your business goals and improves efficiency. This playbook identifies technology gaps, software solutions, hardware requirements, and integration plans, plus training and support on technology.
Financial Playbook: A comprehensive guide to manage your hospitality business’ finances. This playbook covers budgeting, financial forecasting, accounting practices, and financial performance analysis. It should highlight financial contingency plans, mock labor schedules, daily/weekly/monthly/seasonal traffic reports that align with the business, and financial objectives.
Operational Playbook (a.k.a. Business Plan): Outlines the day-to-day operations in great detail, along with long-term strategies. This playbook ensures that all aspects of your operations are well-coordinated and aligned with your overall business goals, and the other seven playbooks. It should highlight standard operating procedures, labor plans, supply chain management, guest services, and measurable operational metrics.

You’ll notice there are seven other playbooks written before the business plan. Far too often, this is where people start. Without the other seven playbooks, it will be nearly impossible to craft a winning playbook for your day-to-day operations.

When Should You Use Playbooks

To Start: These eight playbooks are crucial to craft your success story right from the beginning. Build the foundations before signing a lease or purchasing a property.
To Stabilize: If you’re currently underperforming (profit margins under 12 percent for bars and restaurants, and under 15 percent for hotels), use playbooks to generate impactful results.
To Scale: These playbooks will help ensure that both your first location—and the next location—are prepared for consistent operations without diminishing your brand equity.

Strategic planning within detailed playbooks is essential for your hospitality business’ success.

Regardless of your current position, evaluate your use of business plans, and consider developing comprehensive playbooks instead. Make the time and commitment to achieving true clarity in your business, and position yourself to be on the correct side of this industry’s statistics.

AI image generator: DALL-E

June 25, 2024by krghospitality krghospitality No Comments

The Power of an ImpactMAP™

The Power of an ImpactMAP™

by Doug Radkey

Let’s be honest, the line between success and failure often hinges on the ability to act decisively and act with purpose.

In this article, we’re going to explore two areas of your hospitality business that are under your control: creating a plan, and taking action.

Understanding the Risk of Inaction

The concept surrounding the Risk of Inaction—arguably a new form of ROI—captures the potential losses businesses face when they fail to take strategic actions.

Inaction in the hospitality industry can manifest in various harmful ways. Inaction can also stem from multiple sources: fear of change, lack of resources, or simply underestimating the competition.

Regardless of the manifestation or cause, the consequences are usually the same: stagnation, decline, and, ultimately, a shuttered business.

Let’s put this into context by taking a look at a sample of both a restaurant and a hotel business.

Failure to Innovate

If a restaurant does not act to continuously re-engineer its menu, it risks diminishing profits, providing a low-level guest experience, and mismanaging inventory. Without regular strategic updates, the menu may fail to reflect current culinary trends and guest preferences, which can lead to a decrease in interest and satisfaction.

Additionally, sticking with a static menu can prevent the restaurant from optimizing ingredient use, productivity, and cost-efficiency.

At the end of the day, this lack of adaptation and innovation will result in diminishing sales and profitability, making it difficult for the restaurant to sustain its operations.

Failure to Update Systems

If a hotel on the other hand decides to not use a modern and fully integrated Property Management System (PMS), it risks operating inefficiently and falling behind in today’s technology-driven hospitality environment.

A non-existent, outdated, or fragmented PMS can lead to significant operational issues, such as slow check-in and check-out processes, errors in room availability and booking management, and ineffective communication between different departments. That’s just to name a few crucial issues.

This inefficiency can impact guest experiences negatively, leading to dissatisfaction and potentially harming the hotel’s reputation.

Furthermore, without a modern PMS, a hotel may struggle with data management, limiting its ability to effectively analyze performance metrics, forecast demand, and implement dynamic pricing strategies. These disadvantages will result in lost revenue and reduced competitiveness in a space where guest expectations and operational efficiency are increasingly driven by technological advancements.

In each example above, the risk of inaction leads to missed opportunities and underperformance.

The Power of an ImpactMAP™

To combat the risks associated with inaction, your hospitality business can benefit significantly from developing an ImpactMAP™.

This strategic tool can help you identify where you currently stand, define where you want to go, and outline the steps required to get there, thereby helping you create not only strategic clarity, but drive and accountability.

The Assessment

To create an ImpactMAP™ and to take action immediately, you need to first assess your operations.

An assessment of your hospitality business is a comprehensive evaluation process aimed at analyzing various aspects of your business to identify strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement or opportunity. The goal is to gather actionable insights that can help optimize operations, enhance guest experiences, and massively improve your profitability.

The assessment should involve on-site observations, staff interviews, and a deep dive into the following eight categories, culminating in a detailed report that provides recommendations and a strategic plan for future growth and sustainability.

For each of the eight categories, consider a 3x matrix with three responses to the following questions:

Where are we now?
Where do we want to go?
What resources do we need?
What’s holding us back?

Then, create a SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Timely) goal for each response in your “Where We Want to Go” list.

What are the eight assessment categories?

1. Brand Strategy

Assessment: Review your core values, story, messaging, philosophy, design, and reputation.

Opportunity: Enhance brand alignment across all touchpoints to ensure consistency while refining your brand messaging to better connect with targeted guest profiles.

2. Internal Programming

Assessment: Review your pricing strategy, guest experiences, property / menu / room management systems and programs.

Opportunity: Optimize your offerings based on guest preference data and a profitability analysis, along with potential upgrades to your amenities to enhance guest satisfaction and to compete with today’s market standards. In summary, implement efficiencies to improve guest experiences and operational workflow with a focus on your internal programming.

3. Marketing Plans

Assessment: Review guest profiles, guest journey maps, guest databases, awareness and retention strategies, and your digital marketing portfolio.

Opportunity: Integrate advanced digital marketing techniques to increase reach and engagement while developing targeted promotions and partnerships, and by leveraging data analytics to tailor marketing efforts more precisely to guest behaviors and trends.

4. Tech-Stack Plans

Assessment: Review guest facing technology, POS / PMS system, integrations, and marketing.

Opportunity: Identify current technology gaps and plan for a strategic integration of systems that enhance guest experiences while streamlining operations.

5. Standard Operating Procedures

Assessment: Review of all internal and external systems, plus training programs and SOPs.

Opportunity: Ensuring that all staff are clear on their roles and responsibilities, which enhances overall service quality through the development of standardized procedures that ensure consistency and efficiency across the business. Implement feedback systems to continually refine and improve SOPs based on real-time challenges and successes.

6. People and Culture

Assessment: Review of staff experiences, onboarding, productivity, growth, and retainment.

Opportunity: Strengthen employee engagement through improved communication and support systems. Foster a culture of innovation and openness in which employees feel valued and motivated. Develop leadership from within to enhance management effectiveness and succession planning.

7. Financial Health

Assessment: Review of all financials, including Revenue, COGs, KPIs, Expenses, Debt, and Profit.

Opportunity: Identify cost-saving opportunities without compromising service quality. Explore new revenue streams that align with your brand values and market opportunities. Implement more rigorous financial tracking and forecasting tools (such as technology) to better predict financial trends and react proactively.

8. Mindset

Assessment: Daily habits, work / life balance, decisiveness, communications, and growth-based thinking.

Opportunity: Develop a mindset of continuous improvement among all staff levels (starting with yourself) to foster an environment of excellence. Cultivate resilience by planning for crisis management and business continuity. Promote a guest-centric approach, aligning all business decisions with guest satisfaction and personal development outcomes.

Creating the ImpactMAP™

By following the above 3x strategy for each category, you will have created 24 SMART objectives that will be the foundation of your ImpactMAP™ to move your business forward over the next one to six to 12 months.

Importance of SMART Objectives

What does SMART mean and how does it work?

Specific, Clarity, and Focus: SMART objectives provide clear and concise goals that everyone in your business can understand and rally behind. This clarity helps to focus efforts and resources on what’s most important.
Measurability and Tracking: By setting measurable goals, your business can track progress and make data-driven decisions. This measurability allows for adjustments to be made in strategies or tactics to ensure the objectives are met.
Achievability: Goals that are achievable motivate staff. Setting impossible goals can lead to frustration and disengagement, whereas achievable objectives encourage team effort and commitment.
Relevance: Ensuring that each objective is relevant to the broader business goals ensures that every effort made contributes to the overall success of your brand.
Timeliness: Incorporating a timeframe provides urgency, a deadline, and accountability, which can help prioritize daily tasks and long-term plans.

However, you shouldn’t try to accomplish all 24 objectives at the same time. Once you’ve set your 24 impactful objectives, prioritizing them is crucial to stabilize your hospitality business and aim for scalable growth.

Best Practices for Prioritizing Objectives

Assess Business Needs: Start by conducting that thorough assessment of your business to identify key areas that need improvement.
Impact Analysis: Evaluate the potential impact of each objective. Prioritize objectives that offer the greatest benefits in terms of guest satisfaction, revenue growth, and operational efficiency.
Resource Availability: Consider the resources available, including budget, people, and technology. Prioritize objectives that align with current resources or where adjustments can be made to accommodate necessary changes.
Quick Wins: Identify objectives that can be achieved quickly and with minimal disruption to your ongoing operations. These quick wins can boost morale and provide visible improvements that justify further investments in other areas.
Strategic Importance: Some objectives, while not providing immediate benefits, are crucial for long-term success. Prioritize these based on their strategic importance to the business’s future.
Stakeholder Input: Engage with various stakeholders, including management, staff, and guests, to gain insights into which objectives they feel are most critical. This can help in aligning the goals with the needs and expectations of those most affected by the changes.
Balanced Scorecard: Use a balanced scorecard approach to ensure that objectives across different areas such as guest services, internal processes, financial performance, and learning and growth are all being addressed.
Iterative Review: Regularly review the priorities as situations and business dynamics evolve. What may be a priority today might change based on market conditions or internal business changes over the next three to six months.

Once you have your objectives prioritized, it’s time to assign or delegate them as needed and have those assignees (including yourself) take ownership of the objectives with their signature to add another level of accountability.

Implementing the ImpactMAP™

Before starting, ask yourself one final question: What will happen if we don’t take action?

Be detailed and mindful of what the short-term and long-term consequences might be if you don’t act.

Effective implementation of an ImpactMAP™ requires knowledge of these consequences, along with a commitment from all levels of your business. It starts with comprehensive training sessions followed by regular review meetings, which are both essential to assess progress, address challenges, and refine strategies as needed.

Take a SMART-ER approach, which is where you Evaluate and Re-adjust the SMART objectives halfway through the timeline you’ve set.

Conclusion

Risk of inaction is a silent threat that can undermine any business, particularly in this dynamic industry.

Adopting an ImpactMAP™ and making a commitment to take massive action allows you to manage your operations proactively, adapt to changing market conditions, and set a course for sustainable success.

This strategic approach not only mitigates risks but also empowers your hospitality business to thrive in a competitive landscape—but it starts with you and your mindset toward taking action.

Image: KRG Hospitality

October 11, 2023by David Klemt David Klemt No Comments

Brand Love: BrandVue’s 2023 Rankings

Brand Love: BrandVue’s 2023 Rankings

by David Klemt

As we near the end of the year, Savanta has revealed their BrandVue’s Most Loved Eating Out Brands 2023 report, ranking 100 restaurant brands in America.

The B2B and B2C market consultancy has been publishing this report since 2019. Their fifth-annual report includes 16 categories, including ranking consumer opinion of third-party delivery services.

As a category, Burger boasts the greatest presence with 17 loved restaurant brands. In second is Italian or Pizza with 13 brands. With ten brands, Specialty comes in third as a category. Tied for fourth are Mexican and Chicken, featuring eight brands each.

Download the full report here.

Top Restaurant in Each Category

Below you’ll find the gold medalist in each category, in alphabetical order by restaurant type.

Asian: Panda Express
Burger: McDonald’s
Café or Bakery: Starbucks
Chicken: Chick-fil-A
Family Style: Cracker Barrel Old Country Store
Frozen Dessert: Cold Stone Creamery
Italian or Pizza: Olive Garden
Mexican: Taco Bell
Sandwich: Subway
Seafood: Red Lobster
Specialty: Krispy Kreme
Steak: Texas Roadhouse
Varied Menu: The Cheesecake Factory

Other Categories

There are a handful of other categories on the BrandVue list. Namely, Delivery, Sports Bar, and Meal-kit.

I’ve separated Delivery in particular because it doesn’t represent brick-and-mortar brands. Rather, these are third-party services.

For this year’s list, Savanta ranks five delivery services. Below, the top three:

Caviar
DoorDash
UberEats

However, it’s important to note that DoorDash bought their one-time rival Caviar back in 2019. So, it’s really as though DoorDash claims two spots among the top three.

Of course, UberEats owns Postmates, which is among the five Delivery brands on this list. So is Seamless, owned by Grubhub. However, Grubhub itself doesn’t appear on this list.

The other two categories, Sports Bar and Meal-kit, count just one brand each among them: Buffalo Wild Wings and Plated, respectively.

Top 26 Restaurant Brands

Below, the top quarter of the 2023 BrandVue list. As you’ll see, the gold medalists among the top 25 are in bold.

Why did I decide to show the top 26 rather than the top 25? My reasoning is simple: one of the top 25 is a delivery service, not a brick-and-mortar restaurant.

Domino’s (Italian or Pizza)
Red Lobster (Seafood)
Cold Stone Creamery (Frozen Dessert)
Culver’s (Burger)
Caviar (Delivery)
Cinnabon (Specialty)
Braum’s (Burger)
Auntie Anne’s (Specialty)
Wingstop (Chicken)
Popeyes (Chicken)
Wendy’s (Burger)
Pizza Ranch (Italian or Pizza)
Pizza Hut (Italian or Pizza)
KFC (Chicken)
The Cheesecake Factory (Varied Menu)
Subway (Sandwich)
In-N-Out Burger (Burger)
Dunkin’ Donuts (Café or Bakery)
Taco Bell (Mexican)
Raising Cane’s (Chicken)
Olive Garden (Italian or Pizza)
Krispy Kreme (Specialty)
Texas Roadhouse (Steak)
McDonald’s (Burger)
Starbucks (Café or Bakery)
Chick-fil-A (Chicken)

Unsurprisingly, the top six spots go to gold medalists. In total, gold medalists claim seven slots amongst the top ten. Twelve of the top performers out of all 16 categories are in the top 25.

Interestingly, the list also puts America’s love for burgers, chicken, and pizza on full display. Of the top 25 most-beloved restaurant brands, five fall into the Burger category, and five fall into Chicken. Four slots belong to the Italian or Pizza category.

Notably, there are no Asian or Family Style restaurants among the top 26. However, I expect more Asian and Mexican restaurants to earn places in the top quarter over the next few years.

To see the full list of the 100 most-beloved restaurant (and delivery) brands in the US, click here.

Image: Joshua Golde on Unsplash

October 4, 2023by David Klemt David Klemt No Comments

5 Books to Read this Month: October 2023

5 Books to Read this Month: October 2023

by David Klemt

Our inspiring and informative October book selections will help you and your team transform your vision for your business into a successful story.

This month, we’re taking a good look at independent hotel operations, including checking out the wonderful guest experience a rustic lodge can deliver. We also dive into operations and brand strategy.

Oh, and we get inspiration from a company founder who turned $50 into a $30 billion-per-year, globally recognized brand.

To review the book recommendations from September 2023, click here.

Let’s jump in!

INDIE HOTEL: Why Hoteliers Are Breaking Free from Chains and Choosing Independence

I picked up INDIE HOTEL just a day or two after it was released. Written by Jeremy Wells, one of the brilliant minds behind the recently opened Ozarker Lodge, this book examines the shifting hospitality landscape.

From Amazon: “The hospitality industry is exciting and always evolving. One of the most exciting shifts in recent years is the growing popularity of independent, boutique hotels. While chains are here to stay, I believe the days of franchise domination are numbered. Traveler preferences are changing, and technology, once available only to chains, is becoming more accessible. As a result, more and more hoteliers will continue to make the leap into independence—breaking free from chains and enjoying a newfound freedom.”

Order your copy today!

Lodge: An Indoorsy Tour of America’s National Parks

We’re firm believers of looking everywhere for inspiration. Lodge may not be a how-to book for hoteliers but it speaks to the importance of the guest experience. Moreover, it shows that while midscale and luxury hotels and resorts seem to popping up all over, a rustic lodge that encourages disconnecting and recharging definitely still has its place in hospitality.

From Amazon: “Max Humphrey shines a light on 10 rustic National Park lodges in all their airy, timeworn splendor. No historic photos here; the images of the architecture and interiors are as they look today, highlighting these storied places in a fresh, alluring way. Sure, the lobbies are the main stage, but Humphrey touches on grand dining rooms, guest rooms, and rustic canteens alike. He writes about the buildings themselves in terms of the historical goings-on at the time, why they were built, and the players involved, highlighting notable architectural moments and period-specific furnishings. A smattering of pop culture history adds extra bursts of levity throughout.”

Grab it today.

Future Hospitality: Impactful Brand Experiences that Drive Sustainable Growth, Happier Guests, and Inspired Staff

Since the latest Jeremy Wells book kicks off this list, let’s take a look at his first book.

Future Hospitality drives home a simple but powerful principle that KRG shares. Put simply, hospitality is a mindset. This book also explains how an operator’s brand strategy plays a significant role in embodying that important principle.

From Amazon: “The purpose of this book is to help you understand the significance of making people feel good, and how the principles of strategic brand development can dramatically influence how you go about doing it.

“Without the core foundational component of a brand strategy in place at your business, I believe that you’ll be fighting an uphill battle that you don’t need to fight. If your business means anything to you, then you need to make it mean something to others.”

Order your copy here.

Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of NIKE

Again, we don’t always have to look at the hospitality industry for inspiration or lessons. We can learn from businesses that appear to have nothing to do with our own.

There are several lessons we can learn from Phil Knight and his leadership of Nike. For example, the following quotes are attributed to Knight:

“Don’t tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.”
“Let everyone else call your idea crazy; just keep going. Don’t stop. Don’t even think about stopping until you get there, and don’t give much thought to where ‘there’ is. Whatever comes, just don’t stop.”

From Amazon: “In 1962, fresh out of business school, Phil Knight borrowed $50 from his father and created a company with a simple mission: import high-quality, low-cost athletic shoes from Japan. Selling the shoes from the boot of his Plymouth, Knight grossed $8000 in his first year. Today, Nike’s annual sales top $30 billion. In an age of start-ups, Nike is the ne plus ultra of all start-ups, and the swoosh has become a revolutionary, globe-spanning icon, one of the most ubiquitous and recognisable symbols in the world today.”

Pick up your copy.

Bar Hacks: Developing The Fundamentals for an Epic Bar

If you have yet to read Bar Hacks, written by KRG Hospitality president and Bar Hacks podcast creator Doug Radkey, you need to pick your copy up today.

Without an understanding and appreciation of the fundamentals, long-term success is essentially an impossibility.

Image: Mikołaj on Unsplash

Chess pieces on chess board in grayscale

March 31, 2023by David Klemt David Klemt No Comments

Empower Your Team to Make Decisions

Do You Empower Your Team to Make Decisions?

by Kim Richardson

Empowerment is about so much more than trusting someone to follow clearly defined rules; you must learn to trust your team’s judgement.

Yes, even when things don’t go according to plan. If you’re only training your team on the “rules,” you’re doing a disservice to them and yourself. So, let’s have a little chat about empowerment. What does it mean to you? What are your expectations of your team when you tell them they are empowered?

Looking back throughout your own work history, have you ever had a job where your boss told you that you were empowered to make decisions, but you didn’t actually know what to do or how to make decisions? Did anyone ever explain “the how” of decision making to you?

Now, look at yourself as a leader. Have you ever had employees that you’ve told are empowered to make decisions, yet they get a manager every time someone needs something out of the ordinary? Are you explaining to your staff “the how” of decision making, along with your expectations?

It’s frustrating to feel like the house might fall down when you’re not in it. That’s no way to operate a business. We all want our staff to be able to make educated decisions when we’re not around. We shouldn’t have to hold their hands and be part of every single decision.

Still, there are times when, left to their own devices, a team member doesn’t make the decision you’d want them to make. This makes owners and leadership team members feel as though they must be at work every second.

So, how do you move away from micromanagement and learn to trust your team’s decision making?

Leverage Teachable Moments

You’ll never be able to give an example of every possible situation that may arise. Therefore, you’ll never be able to train your team on everything that they’ll encounter on any shift.

How do you tell someone how to handle situations when you’re not around? You don’t, and I don’t suggest you even try. Instead, you need to instill a sense of empowerment in your team.

However, “empowerment” is just a word if you’re not educating your team. You need to teach staff how to make good decisions. And how do you even start to do that? Cash in on all the teachable moments that happen throughout the day!

Once upon a time we were all new to this industry. I’m sure you have a few stories of some mistakes you’ve made along the way. I know I certainly do.

Think back to those situations. Did someone explain to you why you made a mistake? More importantly, did they then help you understand what to do next time? Or did they just get mad and make you feel like a failure?

I’ve had the privilege of working with some amazing people over the years. There are several people that really put effort into teaching me. The different things they taught me helped me to understand the ins and outs of decision making, even in situations I know very little about.

Example 1: The Restaurant

For my first job ever, I was a hostess at an Italian restaurant and pizzeria. During the training process I was told to rotate sections when seating tables. That’s easy enough, right? Well…maybe not.

Sometimes I’d see exceptions to this rule. The same section would get sat twice in a row, for example. I watched exceptions to “the rule” get made with no clue as to why.

One day, I sat the same section twice in a row. I don’t remember why, but I do remember the server’s reaction.

Right after seating the second party in the server’s section she let me know how annoyed she was by my decision. Now, I knew I messed up immediately—she let me know. But I didn’t know why it wasn’t okay that I had double-sat her this time.

All I knew is there was a rule I was expected to follow…unless I wasn’t supposed to follow it. Sometimes it was okay to disregard the rule, sometimes not. The rule wasn’t clarified before I began my role as a hostess, it wasn’t explained during training, and it wasn’t explained in the moment I “broke” the rule.

At some point it was explained to me that there were several factors that influenced the “double-seating rule.” For instance, you might skip a section in the rotation if they were just sat a big party. You might double-seat someone if they were regulars, family or friends and the server was able to accommodate an additional table. Of course, there were several other factors that could come into play.

The biggest issue is that none of that was explained to me during training. Moreover, I was left to figure out the nuances of seating on my own.

Example 2: The Hotel Sales Office

I worked at a hotel in the sales office for my first job out of college handling group room blocks.

The contracts I sent out to clients had cutoff dates 30 days prior to the event. Again, sounds pretty simple, doesn’t it?

One day a bride emailed me asking if she could extend the cutoff date. The cutoff date fell on a holiday weekend and she was concerned that people might not have time to book their rooms. I wrote her back and very politely told her no. So she reached out to my boss, Jill, who told her yes.

And then I got called into Jill’s office.

I remember that conversation like it was yesterday. Jill was very nice about the situation and explained that it was okay to make exceptions for people sometimes. Sometime later, I extended a cutoff date for another group. Should be an acceptable exception, right?

Nope. I got my hand slapped on that one. There was a citywide event going on over those dates. The hotel was fully sold out and turning away business. In this circumstance, it was actually a huge problem to extend the cutoff date.

Great—here we go again with a rule that exists in a gray area, and no one explained its nuances. As it turns out, there are factors that go into extending a cutoff date, such as how many rooms the group has already picked up; how busy the hotel is over the dates of their room block; and the relationship you have with the client.

I don’t know if anyone ever flat out explained these gray areas to me. Instead, I was left to figure out the nuances through trial and error.

Example 3: The Dish Tub Incident

At that same hotel several years later I started handling banquet events. One day, a client told me their registration desk needed dish tubs lined with cloth napkins. I threw it on the banquet event order.

Well, I happened to work at a Five Diamond hotel. Dish tubs with napkins sitting out in view of the public? That’s not how we did things. Enter: Bruce the Banquet Manager.

No detail, however small, escaped Bruce. Referring to the dish tubs and napkins, Bruce asked me why they were necessary. I actually had no idea what the client wanted with the tubs and napkins. So, I reached out to the client.

Turns out all she needed was a way to store welcome packets for event attendees. These days, we just put up a QR code and call it good. Once I let Bruce know what the containers were actually for, he understood. However, we weren’t about to load unsightly dish tubs with welcome packets. Instead, we found something more aesthetically pleasing and in line with our level of service.

I spoke about the Dish Tub Incident with Jill. To her credit, she helped me understand that people who are planning meetings so frequently are sending standard specs. Sometimes there would be a request on a BEO that wouldn’t make sense for the venue. Crucially, she taught me that if I ever saw something that didn’t make sense I needed to ask questions.

Truthfully, I don’t remember if it was that conversation or another but Jill taught me one of the best lessons: Ask the client what goal they’re trying to achieve. By understanding their goals we could provide solutions that made sense for us and honored their wishes. Additionally, we’d deliver the excellent service they had come to expect.

Example 4: The Hotel Cafeteria

Let’s take a little break from talking about my mistakes and talk about somebody else’s.

Many years later, I was working at another hotel. One day, I went to the cafeteria and the fruit bowls had Asian pears in them. I love Asian pears, so I was really excited about those bowls.

Now, those particular pears were probably a day away from being spoiled. I went to the cafeteria the next week and there were the Asian pears again! This time, they were perfectly fresh, crisp pears.

Well, I certainly enjoyed that. You want to know who didn’t enjoy that? The executive chef!

As it turns out, Chef sent the pears that were about to go bad to the cafeteria because they were leftovers from something else. He didn’t want them to go to waste. But the fresh, crisp pears that were out the following week? Those were a different story.

There was a kitchen team member who saw the Asian pears go down the week before. When he was setting up the cafeteria the following week he threw some in the fruit bowl. No one had told him that Asian pears are expensive. Also, no one had told him the pears were just going down to the cafeteria because they were close to spoiling. They’re not typically the type of thing set out in the employee cafeteria.

While I would never expect Chef to stop and explain every single decision he’s making, it’s the perfect example of seeing one of your superiors doing something and thinking you’re supposed to do the same.

Leaders Teach

When I look back on some of the mistakes I made, they seem pretty obvious with many years of hindsight.

The solutions to unexpected situations are common knowledge to me now. If you also have some years in this industry, they’re likely common knowledge to you.

And that’s my point.

I was young. I was inexperienced. People didn’t always tell me the things they had learned that were common knowledge to them. So, they also didn’t share their expectations with me.

I can only assume that you have people on your team that are young and inexperienced. As seasoned hospitality professionals, we all make decisions every day that can be teaching moments. These moments are part of the learning experience. Using them to shape your team will help your business run better.

Have you implemented an onboarding process? Do you have a detailed employee manual? Do you have actual systems in place? If so, great—you’re ahead of the curve.

But do you think that you’re training new and existing employees on every situation that will ever pop up during their shifts? Really, that’s impossible. Instead, be on the lookout for teachable moments. Put people on your leadership and empower them to do the same.

In turn, they’ll help empower your staff to make the “right” decisions for your business. And importantly, they’ll feel empowered to learn from mistakes so they don’t repeat them. Over time, and it won’t take long, you and your leadership team will be able to step away and work on other parts of the business. In fact, you’ll find that you can step away from the business from time to time.

People are going to make mistakes. That includes you. Don’t let these teachable opportunities go to waste.

Image: Hassan Pasha on Unsplash