A few days ago, my wife and I had lunch at one of our favorite restaurants. We discussed what sets our preferred establishments apart from others. My wife noticed something interesting: The best places all have a limited menu, with popular dishes done consistently well.
If you want to improve your restaurant business, the approach is actually counter intuitive: Don’t try to expand and create new dishes, but simplify and focus on the few things you do very well.
Improving your business, organizational or professional results by taking out activities is called strategic quitting. It’s a highly effective and superior approach, since strategic quitting offers three unique advantages when compared to adding new activities.
- It reduces volatility; the probability of bad outcomes when significant changes in your environment happen becomes less likely. For example, when an economic recession occurs, a simple and trusted meal with consistent high quality will continue to be in high demand.
- It creates new opportunities; a limited, high quality menu reduces preparation complexity and increases the speed of service and consistency. This, in turn, will boost turnover, growth and margin.
- It’s much easier; getting rid of ballast on your menu takes much less effort than a complete redesign to add new dishes, such as new kitchen facilities, training new cooking skills, setting up new suppliers, etc.
Next time you want to start something new, combat the urge and focus first on getting rid of deadweight. After all, your ability to strategically quit, equals your ability to massively succeed
Photo Credit: iStockPhoto/yacobchuk
1 Comment
very sound advice that can lead to prosperity