Hello and welcome! I am so excited to be here today, I seriously love doing this podcast, it’s like my guilty pleasure. You should see me sitting here with my heart mug, a smile on my face and my notes on my desk; I can’t wait for today’s topic. If you are just finding my podcast, make sure you follow, new episodes are released every Wednesday wherever you listen to your podcasts.
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Anyway, back to the topic at hand. As I said, I am so very excited to be talking about our topic of the three biggest blocks that are keeping your restaurant or business stuck. This is actually something we were just talking about in my restaurant growth management class, Theresa Cantley’s Business Growth Formula, so this information is so ready to be shared with all of you as well! I know I have said it before, but it bears repeating now, all of these things I talk about I am well versed in. All of my topics are things I have personally experienced or that I have helped my clients see success with. So it’s not fluff and stuff information. It’s all experience. I have a Ph.D. in results and I have a master’s in experience, and I am here to share my knowledge and experience with you.
The three blocks we are going to talk about today I have seen at every level of business, from my old bosses to my current clients. A lot of the time people don’t even realize they are there, at least not until it’s time to let them go. We are all so ingrained that we don’t realize what is ingrained within us.
I get calls from my new clients–when they are just joining me, and they are distraught, ready to throw in the towel, and they are overwhelmed. Now, the first thing I always do with my new clients is something I call the Iconic Assessment, we go through this audit and we look at what is working and what isn’t. What are the frustration points and struggles? You know, the funniest thing happens. Every time, the same three things come up these three biggest blocks in the restaurant business.
These three things, they perpetuate, they don’t just hold stagnant they actually blossom into what I call the five misconceptions. Here is the thing about all of these. If you give in to these beliefs and misconceptions, you are done for. As I have talked about before I owned a brick and mortar business, I have heard these ideas vocalized first-hand, and guess what. The people who gave into these ideas, I would say 90% of those businesses are closed now. 90% is a big amount! The few that are still around, they are the ones that didn’t give in to the self-limiting beliefs, I had discussions with them, some of them were actually clients. The reason they are still around? It is because they made a change and they didn’t give in to these blocks that exist. So pay attention, and let me know if any of them resonate with you.
Block number one, and it’s one I talk about a lot, thinking you need to take on and do everything yourself. This one is HUGE, there is a reason I am talking about it first. I see this all the time, in every business I work with. People have this belief that they need to do everything themselves. They are overwhelmed and stress and they don’t know what to do. The ironic part of this is that all of these people I am talking to are part of a team. A team that is literally there to take on some of the load. Here is the thing guys, no matter if you are a business owner, an entrepreneur, or anything else, more than anything else you are a human being, and as humans, we can not go 24/7 without refueling.
The other reason this is a huge block is because it holds you where you are. You stay stuck because you limiting the time you, as a business owner–the visionary, have to be creative. If you are putting everything on your plate and not doling out responsibilities then you can’t work on new ideas and create the vision for where you are going next. It keeps you from interacting with the community, building relationships, and growing.
I have a client who is the perfect example of this. We were planning an event and he kept shooting ideas down and saying that he wanted it to be simple. The day of the event came and it was, okay, not fantastic, not terrible, just okay. I asked him again, why didn’t we have food with the music, all we had as drinks, and beer, and some wine, we were missing that little extra. Then he revealed to me, despite having built him an amazing team, he was still used to putting everything together for an event himself, and he didn’t want to dedicate all of his time to this event. He admitted to me, Theresa I was wrong, this event could have been so much better. Cut to a year later and we held the event again and it was a huge hit! He had utilized his team and allowed them to do their jobs and everyone benefited.
Okay onto block number two. Block two has to do with blaming external factors for your own lack of growth. I hear it all the time, all the excuses, we don’t do enough coupons, the economy is bad, the town isn’t promoting itself enough so tourism is down, so-and-so was supposed to do a thing and didn’t… I ask my clients who give me these excuses, “so, based on what you are saying, it is everyone else’s fault that your business is failing but not yours right?” and they look at me like I am crazy. The thing is, you are projecting that the problem is everyone else when in reality, it is your business, it’s in your hands. So, we take the time and we break it down.
We start with the experience, what is the experience you want your customers to have when they visit you. Then we really start to dig into everything in order to create that experience. We look at the vision, the mission, the core values because those things build that experience. If you aren’t invested in all of these aspects then you aren’t taking responsibility and you aren’t invested in what is making your business tick. If you take responsibility for everything that happens in your business and your life then everything shifts. Yes, somebody probably didn’t do their job. But also your responsibility in it is there’s something in there, right? So we also work on building out the experience that you create with your community and connecting to the community so you know what’s going on. That way you can be a part of bringing people into your town, or you can consistently connect with them and cross promote with them and collaborate with them. This will allow you to build that signature experience for that perfect customer.
Onto block number three, another big one that I see regularly. The third block is making your decisions based solely on your current circumstances. These circumstances can be anything, time, money, staff, ideas. Business owners will tell me that they want their business to grow but they don’t have the right staff, or they don’t know if it will work, or they don’t have the money right now. Let me tell you, it is so easy to blame your current circumstance, but that won’t get you past your current circumstance.
If you aren’t building your vision then you can’t prepare for what needs to be don’t to get there. A lot of business owners tell me that they are going to stick with what they have always done… but what they have always done is what put them in their current circumstance. Instead what they should be doing is looking at what they want their business to look like in three months, six, months, a year. And then start taking the steps to get there. I mean, it makes me laugh, you want your business to grow, make more money? Well, that is going to take change! You can’t just keep sticking with the status quo. It won’t get you to that new place you want to be in your business.
Do you see these blocks in yourself or your team? Are you ready to take the steps to get uncomfortable for a little bit in order to build your business to your vision?
So focusing on empowering your team and building a better experience for your team. Knowing what you can delegate and get off your plate and what only you can handle is how to combat and breakthrough that first block. Understanding that you made that … Getting a coach. Investing in the help of a coach or a consultant to really help you to figure out what is going to work to build your business. What is going to work for you? And then building that experience with your team, and maybe even your employees, to push some of that out to them. Figuring out your core values of the business and making sure that people align with them.
Take full responsibility for your business, from the vision on up. And also communicating that vision out to absolutely every single person in your organization. That’s what it means by taking full responsibility for everything that happens in your business. It doesn’t mean absorbing the responsibility of others and their lack of performance. It means that you take ownership of your vision. You take ownership of the mission values of your business. You take ownership of the plan that you’re creating to build your business.
And the last one is putting together a plan and a strategy that is based on future possibilities, not on current circumstances. There’s always a way to get things done. You need to focus on what can be and the little steps you need to take in order to find yourself in your vision.
Anything is possible. There’s always a way to make it happen. But you have to believe that.
And these three blocks, take a look at them, if you’ve chosen to stay in that discomfort, the consequence is making giant mistakes in your business that end up holding you back or causing something even worse. But when you can take a look at these and remove these blocks and are ready to make a change, anything is possible in your business. Anything is possible. You can achieve things beyond what you ever thought possible, simply by letting go. Letting go of what you thought was the truth, and stepping into something new. Stepping into letting go of the uncomfortable circumstances and the frustration, and the anxiety and the stress because of these blocks, and stepping into something new.
If you enjoyed this episode and in some way it inspired you to start taking action, I’d love to hear about it and know your biggest takeaway. Send me a DM on Instagram @theresacantley and let me know what your favorite part was.
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If there is a topic you would love me to talk about or a question you may have send it to us at theresa@theresacantley.com and we’ll feature it on one of our future episodes.
LINKS:
Episode 31 – Keeping promises you make to yourself.
Episode 30 – Why is change so hard?
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