By: Steve Huff, Owner of Steve Huff Plumbing & PSI Member
Earlier this year my wife and I traveled to visit another plumbing company that had asked for our help getting their business straightened out and headed in the right direction. I felt like we had made great progress on several fronts in the day and a half we spent with them, but I still had my doubts until they took us out to eat on the last night we were there.
Where they took us was a Japanese Hibachi restaurant in a neighboring town. For those of you who may never have been to one these restaurants, here’s how it works.
You are seated around a large flat top grill, and since most of them seat eight, they will fill the other seats with whomever is next in line. This is one of the lessons because it is a good way to practice your conversational skills with someone you have never met—because when you go to a new customer’s home that is something you need to be able to do. You have but a very few minutes to talk to them in a manner that gets them to like and trust you. If you can’t do that, then your job of getting them to buy from you is that much harder. So practice this skill every chance you get.
The next thing that happens is someone comes around and takes everyone’s order. One of the things I noticed was all the other waiters/waitresses took orders in the same way; clockwise around the table.
Next, someone brings out all the food for all eight orders on a big tray followed by the chef who is going to prepare the meal. He also has with him the paper that the first person wrote the orders on, and while he is cooking, he will continually refer back to what was written.
The chef then will spend some time banging his cooking utensils around, setting the grill on fire, stacking up onion rings to make a volcano, juggling an egg with the spatula, and generally putting on a show.
Once he’s done with that, he went around the table and confirmed everyone’s order and the cooking began. Even though everyone had ordered something different—and they wanted it cooked to their individual tastes—he was able to get the food on all the plates at the same time.
After we had enjoyed our meal, I asked the couple we were with what business lessons they had learned from the experience. After they set there a few minutes with this “huh” look on their faces, I finally gave them a few hints. She more than he was able to name most of them.
This made me feel better about the time we had spent with them and that maybe they would actually take what we had taught them and implement it to improve their business.
One other lesson to learn here is that no matter what business you are in, you can always learn ways to improve and make more money if you just pay attention.
Some takeaways from the Hibachi Grill experience:
- Being able to talk to someone you just met.
- Filling all the seats for maximum efficiency
- Order taking-having a plan
- Training-everyone taking orders in the same direction around the table
- Bringing all the food on the same tray-organization/efficiency (again).
- Chef has the copy of the order and refers back to it- knowing the plan and following it.
- Banging utensils- presentation
- Confirming everyone’s order-making sure he understands the plan
- Getting all the food on the plates at the same time-time management
- No matter what business you are in you can always learn from others on how to improve your business