A brief shout-out to Panera, without whose bottomless decaf and wireless access we would not have been able to interview our small army of GM candidates. If I were their landlord, I would be taking a hard look at their parking requirements because there were many others like me (and Marc last week) who camped out there for quite some time. I think the small-business-person-too-cheap-to-have-an-office contingent made up 1/3 of their traffic while I was there.
Thank you Panera.
Anyway, we are getting close to the end of this round of interviewing. As an entrepreneur, it is interesting to see how the caliber of people you interview can influence your ideas about the position you are hiring for. In the end, I think you get a better outcome being little flexible based on the talent walking in the door. The Five Guys concept is pretty compelling, and so is working for a growth business with a lot of career path and opportunity, so we have been fortunate to talk to some very, very good people this week.
Showing posts with label startup. Show all posts
Showing posts with label startup. Show all posts
Friday, November 21, 2008
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
A Good Burger is About More than Food
First of all, welcome to readers of A Hamburger Today, one of the best burger blogs I've found so far. There's a link to the blog on the side for anyone wants to check it out.
We are well into our search for our first store general manager. Through ads in the Boston Globe (semi-productive) and several online resources (much more productive - not a good omen for newspaper people), we found a number of good candidates and are starting to zero in on the right person.
Who is the right person?
Marc and I have a certain business philosophy, which is that no matter what product you buy, the service is a key point. We leave perfecting the burger concoctions to the experts: Five Guys and the customer. Among many other things, the manager's job is to make sure that the environment in which you experience the burger is the best it can be. Here are a few things about what that means:
The store is clean
This is so obvious that it seems strange to write it. However, it is actually difficult to achieve. This is especially true in a store that is physically too small -- so, as partners we are nervous about stores with small footprint. But when a candidate notices the crumbs on the radiator at Panera (our "office" while we conduct interviews), that stands out because we want our management to be obsessed with this. Tables should be cleaned. Trash should not be full. And yes, this philosophy extends to clean bathrooms.
Orders come consistently
Five Guys is *not* a fast-food restaurant. Even so, it has a standard for how many minutes (7) one is supposed to wait for an order, even at busy times. What's almost as important as how quickly it comes is consistency of order turnaround time. Most people would more happily wait 8 minutes every time than 5 minutes most times, but 13 minutes other times. The same applies for almost anything, by the way - human beings like consistency.
Staff is professional and polite
Starbucks is a great business (their real estate overexpansion notwithstanding) in large part because they have figured out that customer experience depends on their "associates" who interact with customers. Five Guys is not a coffeehouse (thank goodness), but applies many of the same principles. Check out sign they post on the front of the soda dispenser next time you are in a store and you will see what I mean. How a manager plans to work with staff to reduce turnover, keep people properly trained, deal proactively with disciplinary issues, and run a smooth-flowing line - and how they have done so successfully in the past - is something that we are watching closely.
There are many other attributes, but fundamentally, you want your experience to be about the food, not why the store was out of straws. That's management. If that's solid, you'll rave about the burgers -- of that, we are confident.
We are well into our search for our first store general manager. Through ads in the Boston Globe (semi-productive) and several online resources (much more productive - not a good omen for newspaper people), we found a number of good candidates and are starting to zero in on the right person.
Who is the right person?
Marc and I have a certain business philosophy, which is that no matter what product you buy, the service is a key point. We leave perfecting the burger concoctions to the experts: Five Guys and the customer. Among many other things, the manager's job is to make sure that the environment in which you experience the burger is the best it can be. Here are a few things about what that means:
The store is clean
This is so obvious that it seems strange to write it. However, it is actually difficult to achieve. This is especially true in a store that is physically too small -- so, as partners we are nervous about stores with small footprint. But when a candidate notices the crumbs on the radiator at Panera (our "office" while we conduct interviews), that stands out because we want our management to be obsessed with this. Tables should be cleaned. Trash should not be full. And yes, this philosophy extends to clean bathrooms.
Orders come consistently
Five Guys is *not* a fast-food restaurant. Even so, it has a standard for how many minutes (7) one is supposed to wait for an order, even at busy times. What's almost as important as how quickly it comes is consistency of order turnaround time. Most people would more happily wait 8 minutes every time than 5 minutes most times, but 13 minutes other times. The same applies for almost anything, by the way - human beings like consistency.
Staff is professional and polite
Starbucks is a great business (their real estate overexpansion notwithstanding) in large part because they have figured out that customer experience depends on their "associates" who interact with customers. Five Guys is not a coffeehouse (thank goodness), but applies many of the same principles. Check out sign they post on the front of the soda dispenser next time you are in a store and you will see what I mean. How a manager plans to work with staff to reduce turnover, keep people properly trained, deal proactively with disciplinary issues, and run a smooth-flowing line - and how they have done so successfully in the past - is something that we are watching closely.
There are many other attributes, but fundamentally, you want your experience to be about the food, not why the store was out of straws. That's management. If that's solid, you'll rave about the burgers -- of that, we are confident.
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