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Donald Burns

Recent Posts

How to transform your restaurant staff in to advocates

Posted by Donald Burns on Aug 24, 2018 8:16:00 AM

A hype-man is a person whose main purpose is to bring the energy. They support the lead artist on stage by – as their title suggests – hyping up the crowd by dancing, rhyming, and pumping as much energy into the venue as possible.

If you’re wondering where you get one of these restaurant hype-men, look no further than your restaurant staff. As the face of your brand to customers and prospective employees, your staff are in the perfect position to excite others about your restaurant, more specifically your mission and purpose.

Investing the time and energy today that’s needed to transform your restaurant staff into effective hype men – in professional circles, we call them brand advocates – will yield huge benefits both in the short and long term. Here's how:

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Topics: Hospitality managers, Hospitality staff, Restaurants, Hospitality training

Creating a marketing plan that works in 4 steps

Posted by Donald Burns on Sep 18, 2017 8:45:00 AM

Are you marketing your restaurant as much as you should be? You might be doing some marketing on social media channels, but if you’re like the majority of restaurants out there, your efforts are far from effective. 

Why? You don't have a solid marketing plan. You’re just dabbling in marketing. It’s time to jump all in.

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Topics: Hospitality marketing, Restaurants, Bars

How to hire restaurant superstars: winning the war with talent

Posted by Donald Burns on Apr 10, 2017 8:30:00 AM

Look at any jobs board and you can’t miss the fact that there are more restaurant jobs available than there are staff to fill those openings. Why is it that some restaurants struggle to fill positions while others never seem to let a vacant position affect them?

To understand that, we need to dig down to the real reason staffing is becoming more challenging every year. It’s all mindset. We have created this “War for Talent” when the reality is that we have a “War with Talent”. By not adapting our management style for new generations, we have built a wall that prevents people from seeing the restaurant industry as a viable employment option.

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Topics: Hospitality operations, Hospitality managers, Restaurants

The river of culture: how great restaurants control the flow

Posted by Donald Burns on Mar 13, 2017 8:30:00 AM

Culture. It’s a word we throw around in the restaurant industry quite often. Maybe a little too often. It's one of those popular buzzwords we tend to use to sound cool, but many of us don’t know what it actually means.

Let’s take a journey down the river of culture to better understand where culture starts, how it grows, what blocks it, and how you can keep the flow going. Culture is truly like a river in the sense that its final destination is the guest. You always want to begin with the end in mind.

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Topics: Hospitality operations, Health and wellbeing, Hospitality managers, Restaurants

How social media is changing for restaurants

Posted by Donald Burns on Feb 9, 2017 9:30:00 AM

Unless you live in a cave or on a deserted island, you would have seen the impact social media has had upon the world. For the independent restaurant it has become the dragon slayer you can use to market against the big brands. You do not need a multi-million-dollar budget to be effective on social media. However, you do need to be smart, clever, and have a game plan.

Too many restaurants just randomly post on social media thinking that is what social media marketing is all about. It’s not that easy. You need to have a few pieces in place if you want to be able to market against the Chipotles of the industry.

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Topics: Hospitality marketing, Restaurants