Have A Safe & Happy Hoiday Weekend!

I'm taking the weekend off for family and R & R. Let's treasure our liberties! See you on Tuesday the 5th.

Mike

What Can We Learn From My Dentist Dr. Szurgot?

Ideas are always around us to be found if we just pay attention. Yesterday I made a visit to my wonderful dentist Dr. Szurgot. The project at hand was the need to have a tooth pulled. Like many people I am somewhat hesitant when it comes to visiting my dentist – even though he works miracles on my apprehension and nervousness.

When you narrow it done to a single reason why I work with Dr. Szurgot is that he “cares”. He cares about my comfort. He answers all my questions. He works swiftly and exercises extreme professionalism.

What can we learn from Dr. Szurgot? He is in the service industry just like caterers. He has as much, or possibly even more, competition than caterers. Also, he has other dentists that sell dentistry at a lower price than he does… as most caterers do. So, I imagine that he understands “forging relationships with clients.

Last night, after I finished dinner with Bernice, he called my condo from his car as he drove home from a ten hours day to “see if all is well”. We had a nice conversation and after answering a few questions about my recovery, he reminded me that I should call if anything concerns me. This is extreme customer service. He is the only dentist that has ever done this to me. How about you? Has your dentist called to make sure you were OK?

I’m just going to suggest that while many caterers say they call their clients after an event, I believe that this doesn’t happen as often as caterers infer it does. Caterers are just too busy and a quick email survey or thank you letter to clients will get the job done nicely. Please consider calling clients personally to check on the outcome and to once again thank them for helping you pay the rent and the salaries of your team.

My mother used to call clients in the one-hour window before the food and staff were scheduled to arrive at the event to tell them that everything looks great and the staff team is excited about the event.  Can you imagine what the host is thinking when the caterer calls one-hour before the event team and food is supposed to arrive?

In one phone call you take your client from the depths of “what’s wrong” to “thank you for calling”. This is caring for clients and outstanding marketing!

Audio #4 - Roman On "Passion" (5:17)

My thoughts on how staff utilizes passion.

New Way To Pay Part-time Event Staff

You may think I’m putting you on with this concept, but really, I think this concept has a place in some companies. This concept deals with paying your part-time event staff… especially for off-premise events.

It all starts during the hiring of the staff person and deals with their pay. The pay is offered based on the “amount of work” they wish to do. Another way of thinking of this is that they get paid on “how much physical abuse they wish to take” during the event. OK, maybe a little dramatic on my part, but most part-timers come in two basic “models”… those that love to get involved and are anxiously willing to work as hard as it takes to get the event handled or the other model that holds back, is slow to carry the tables, and intellectually “hides” from the event leaders in the hope they will be able to stay in a “slow” mode.

Now from the staff team’s point of view, if your company pays the same amount for the willingly participating worker as you do the shirker and lazy model, a potential rift develops in the minds of the hard workers of “why am I working so hard while that person is holding back yet getting the same pay as I do?”

So, during your hiring process of part-timers why not say “we pay those who wish to really work hard and fast by doing the heavy lifting and more intense jobs $4.00 more per hour than those who just wish to work the less intense parts of the events without exerting too much effort like pouring water and scraping dishes. Which do you wish to do if we hire you… the harder work or just the simple stuff?”

Once you stop laughing, please remember that I have clients who use this concept with great success. I suggest you at least think about it. By the way, I can assure you that some new hires will choose to get paid less and work at the easier jobs!