Beingthechef's Blog (10)

How to Pick a Sales Rep

Do you pick your sales rep? If you’re like most people, you just take whichever salesman walks through the door when your looking for a vendor. Seems OK, right? Well, let me ask you this, would you place a help wanted ad in the paper and then just hire who ever walked in your door from the ad? Of course you wouldn't!

Your sales rep makes his living off commissions from your purchases, so in essence, he works for you and you should pick a rep just as you would an… Continue

Added by beingthechef on November 25, 2009 at 9:57am — 1 Comment

The Fastest Way To Drop Those Unwanted Food Cost Percentages

Lower your food cost today, without changing how you do anything and maybe even put some of that savings in your bank account! [pause for cheesy Infomercial Music]

We work in a world of percentages: Food Cost Percentage, Labor Cost Percentage, Profit Percentage. The list goes on and on and we face tremendous pressure and often depend on achieving our percentage goals so that we can make our bonuses or even keep our jobs.

There are hundreds of…

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Added by beingthechef on November 20, 2009 at 10:25pm — 2 Comments

Thank You For All The Things I Never Do

This morning, for some reason I noticed the trash can in our employee locker room. Nothing special about this trash can, but I realized that I had never myself taken it out, nor had I ever asked anyone else to take care of it, but it has always been taken care of ever since we opened this building. I know what you’re thinking, “Whooptee do! Some one took out the trash.”. It may seem like a small thing, and indeed it is, but the important part is that I didn’t have to ask and I’ve never had to… Continue

Added by beingthechef on November 8, 2009 at 10:08am — No Comments

Crossing The "Fault" Line

Two Hundred guests had come to dinner that night for a prime rib dinner that was now way over cooked. I was a sous chef at this time in my life and still had quite a bit to learn about management. Being young, arrogant and driven, I “knew” I was ready to be the chef of my own property, so this was a pretty big blow to my esteem. The previous week, our dishwasher had been cleaning the alto-sham and must of turned the temperature dial up when he was wiping the front of the… Continue

Added by beingthechef on November 8, 2009 at 7:29am — No Comments

How to Kill the Motivation of Your Most Productive Employee

Sometimes you just know that you blew it. It’s funny that even if you know the right answers, you can still take the wrong actions. By reacting to poor advice from a manager, I almost killed the motivation of one of my strongest employees.

Here is how the scenario unfolded: In an impromptu meeting with one of our fellow managers, I was told how a particular employee seemed to have too much down time when I was off property and was playing around too much. Most… Continue

Added by beingthechef on November 7, 2009 at 9:40pm — 2 Comments

The P.I.A Equation: 3 Ways To Lower Vendor Pricing

Do you know what determines the pricing you receive from your primary food vendors? Surely it’s some complicated algorithm that takes purchasing volume, average delivery size and location and then performs some mathematical magic and determines exactly what your pricing is….right? Right?

Well yes and no. All of these factors play a part in your pricing, but the most important aspect of your pricing structure is your sales representative. Most sales reps won’t admit to… Continue

Added by beingthechef on November 5, 2009 at 5:02pm — No Comments

Confessions of A Job Hopping Chef

Oh no! I am a job hopper.

While I was working on a background page for my website, I started to realized that a quick glace at my resume would label me a job hopper. I hate the label “Job Hopper”, mainly because I never felt that I portrayed any of the characteristics of the stereotypical hopper. I have never been fired, been socially or mentally unbalanced, and I’ve never left a position because I wasn’t capable of doing the job. I have left every single… Continue

Added by beingthechef on November 4, 2009 at 12:20pm — No Comments

Free Basic Inventory Spreadsheet

I have received a few requests for just a simple no frills inventory sheet. Not everyone needs a full inventory system like the 86inventory program we are developing. If you have a small operation, perhaps you just want to inventory a few items every week, or you need to inventory items just for a special event, here is a free spreadsheet template you can download. Just fill in the white blanks and the sheet will automatically make the calculations for you!

Click Here… Continue

Added by beingthechef on November 3, 2009 at 1:13pm — No Comments

10 Reason’s Every Chef Should Have A.D.D.

As I read this article on the advantages of A.D.D. or Attention Deficit Disorder by Jennifer Koretsky, I was struck by how many of these strengths are essential to being a good chef. I have dealt with my own A.D.D. most of my life and had always considered it a blessing within my chosen occupation, but reading through this article helped to pin point the corelation between A.D.D. strengths and the characteristics of a successful chef.

Creativity- It goes without… Continue

Added by beingthechef on October 31, 2009 at 6:12pm — No Comments

Don't Just Do Something, Stand There!

“Is your team there to support you or are you there to support your team?”

This was the topic of conversation the other day between myself and a corporate VP. There are times when the work is mostly driven by the Chef and the staff is just there for support, but this tends to work only in small venues. Our conversation started with a comment about how well I take care of my guests, to which I replied that I don’t do much for the guests at all because my job was to take care of my… Continue

Added by beingthechef on October 31, 2009 at 8:57am — 3 Comments