ELECTRONIC HOUSE CALL - March 12, 2004

Road trip! Tomorrow I speak to the National Speakers Association in Boston, then I am in New York City for three days at the New York Restaurant Show followed by two days at Pizza Expo in Las Vegas. The schedule is a little rough but it has been awhile since I have done this much speaking ... and frequent flyer miles are a good thing!

By asking questions, my subscribers have once again made this an easy week for me. As a start, let's deal with Robyn Wood who was getting swamped by requests for charitable donations and wondering how to handle it.

To Give or Not To Give ...
If you feel the need to limit the value of the contributions you make, just set a monthly budget. Given that most requests are for events that have a set date, when someone asks you could say, "We would love to help. As you can imagine, we get a lot of requests and our accountants have insisted that we can only donate so much every month. Unfortunately we have already allocated the entire charitable budget for (your month). If you give us more notice next year, we might be of more help."

This way, the "accountants" and their "budget" are the bad guys, not you or the restaurant. You can, of course, block off future donations for your favorite causes ... and you can adjust the "budget" on the fly to include or exclude anyone you want. Still, the concept of limiting donations to a pre-set amount is not a bad idea.

The other option is to say yes to everyone, but not to a donation. "We would love to help you and here is how we would like to do it. Let's put together a (your charity) night at the restaurant. You promote the event to all your people and we will donate X% of the sales from your members." Those who are just looking for a freebie will decline. Those who are aggressive can make a lot more money -- and you gain exposure to a whole new group of potential guests in the process.

Both these solutions meet my criteria of never saying "no" to a guest because you are saying "yes, under these conditions." There are undoubtedly other approaches. How would you have advised her? I have created a new category on the Forum for "Community Issues" and posted her complete question there. I encourage you to weigh in on it as well.

Click here to take a look at the Restaurant Doctor Forums.

Life is How You Live It ...
This quote has been making the rounds on the Internet lately. In case you haven't seen it, there is a message here worth pondering:

"Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body; but rather to 'skid in' broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, "Wow! What a ride!"

Are you having fun yet?

The Perpetual Question
What did you learn from your staff today?

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