Rationalize or Rational Lies?

I recently listened to a telephone interview Bill Harris of Holosync had with John Assaraf of One Coach. In the interview John said something that caught my attention. He said that early in his career, when he was struggling and looking at his failure or mistakes, he began to realize that as he was rationalizing why things went wrong or why he couldn’t do things, he was telling himself rational lies as to why he couldn’t do things.

How many times do we think of something we would like to achieve, but never accomplish them because we rationalize why we can’t do it? How much of the rationalization is really rational lies to ourselves?

The key here, I believe, is to focus on the end result, the goal you want to reach and the “how can I?” questions instead of the “why can’t I?” questions. Keep your mind centered and focused on the outcome, the end result you desire, everything else will move in that direction.

The way to achieve something is a three step process. First is to know what you want (the end result), second is to know what you need to do to get what you want (the “how can I?” part), and third is to do what you need to do to get what you want (take action, do it). I have seen this formula described in many different ways and in many different self-help books as well as business books. If so many experts give the same basic principles and advice, it must be working for them and those they teach.

1- What do I want?

2- How can I do it?

3- Do it, take action.

Tips for better Tips

I joined a friend of mine for lunch today.

We had a very nice meal and the service was just fine. Nothing extra special and nothing horrible. The service was perfectly fine (I know that the word 'fine' can be dangerous in certain situations, but here I mean it was just fine) and the tip I intended to leave would have been the typical 15%.

The problem was that the bill came to $29 and I figured 15% would be about $4.5o and I was willing to give the server $5 for the tip. I placed $40 in the check presenter and waited for change. She brought the check presenter back with a $10 bill as change.

If it wasn't for the loose change in my pocket and my friend's pocket she almost had no tip at all. Between the two of us we came up with the $4.50 from our pockets. I was not about to leave a $10 tip, that would have been a little over %30. That was too much for service that was just fine.

If the server had brought me two $5 bills instead of the $10 bill she would have had an extra $0.50 in her tip. If she did that with every customer and if she had eight tables per hour, I would estimate that during a normal lunch period (two hours) she could have made an extra $8. Spread that over a regular work week she would have $40 extra per week, $2,080 extra by the end of the year. This is just based on lunch time only, think what more she could make during a dinner shift as well. $2,080 would pay for a pretty nice vacation, all for an extra $0.50 per table on her tips.

When making change for your customers in restaurants, servers need to make change with the lowest denomination as they can without going so low that they might get a slightly lower tip. The average customer will be willing to round up to a dollar if the service was considered slightly better than average, and it is not hard to be better than average when the average service these days is as bad as it is in most places.

Give change that makes it easier for the customer to leave a slightly higher tip, but don't over do it. Think if the customer rounds up the tip to the nearest dollar, what change would be best to make that amount, and make sure they have that in the change, perfectly.

Look at the Tip Chart on my website to see what customers may leave for a rounded tip.

Service Standards

I am noticing what seems to be an increase in bad service. Or maybe the better way to say it is a decrease in quality service. Either way you look at it, people working in the service related industries are just not living up to what their real jobs are. Sure they do their "job" and get the customer what they want, but there is very little service, as in serving, to the customer.

What made me think about this today is I went with my friend Eugene for coffee. We went to a different place just for a change of pace. The girl that served us did her job and got our muffins, Eugene's coffee, and my bottle of water. She went through the motions and did what she was supposed to do. Later, while we were enjoying the light jazz music playing, pleasant conversation, and watching people walk past the window outside, she came out to clear two coffee cups from a table next to ours. That was it. She just came to get those two coffee cups. She did not look or smile at us, she did not offer to take away our empty plates, she made no effort what so ever to acknowledge we were anywhere near her. On our way out the door I looked at her behind the counter and smiled to her, she glared at me, not offering any sort of "have a nice day," and continued her conversation with another employee. Eugene commented, as we got in the car, that he now knows why the parking lot was so empty. I thought of the people, potential customers, walking past the window.

To contrast this, at lunch time we went to another place and the girl there was very friendly. She offered us choices and included positive comments and compliments on what items she had available, which wasn't very much. We made our choice and enjoyed a nice, tasty hotdog and soda for our lunch. As we left, even though we were about fifteen feet away from here, she looked over the shoulder of an employee she was talking to and actually shouted in our direction, "have a good afternoon, guys!" Can you guess where we will go again and where we will never do business again?

The lesson I learned today?
Up scale, trendy coffee house... No.
Cheap hotdog and burger joint... Yes!

Quality of service is much more important than whatever items you are selling.