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say, “Hey Mr. Smith, good evening,” or “Hi Mr. Smith, would you like
to start off with a dirty martini or would you like to start off with a
Cosmo? And we’ve got a great shrimp appetizer we’d like you to try.”
That, to me, is gold. They’re like, man, they know who I am.

Nick:
That’s great advice. What about when you see a brand new customer
in the door, or a new table of four comes in and you’ve never seen
them before, is there anything you do differently with those people
that are walking in the door?

Donald:
You want to gather information. Ask them about who they are and
where they’re from. Are they from the area? If they’re travelling
through, you’re probably not going to get a lot of information, but
still, you want to build rapport. One of the biggest things about
hospitality is that human connection again. You don’t want to be
that cold server walking up and saying, “Hi, good evening. Welcome
their food took like 45 minutes. What happened? Let’s talk about to Fred’s. Can I get you something to drink from the bar?” It’s not
this.” A lot of times when things happen in the heat of battle during personal. You want to have that kind of interaction. You want to
a service, people want to talk about it or hash it out right then. build that human connection.
That’s not the time. The time to do it is after the customers have
left and everyone can calm down a little bit, because when you’re in I’m a huge believer in making recommendations, and I actually teach
that heat of battle and tempers get raised, the last thing you want a course. It’s called NeuroSelling, where I work with the staff and
to do is start trying to dissect what’s going on and blaming people. teach them how to make recommendations, how to build rapport,
Who did what? What happened? and so they can actually start making that hospitality happen. That’s
the biggest thing. When they come in, you want to be very genuine.
Nick: You want to be very enthusiastic, and that’s why it’s also important
Yeah, definitely. What are a few things that you could give us as to make sure you’re hiring the right people for your team. You have
far as just some nice gestures that a server could do to really give someone who is not a talker and very shy and quiet, that might not
the customer a great experience or to make them feel welcomed? be the best person to have on the floor.
Obviously going up to their table smiling and all of that stuff, but do
you have anything that you teach or that you’ve learned from others Nick:
that can really ‘wow’ a customer from a server’s service? Definitely. And what about surveys? One of the things that I do
with my marketing system is three days after we get them to opt in
Donald: online or if they sign up to our
The thing I always do, and loyalty program in house, I
what I had in my restaurant, is I send out an email just saying,
was a big believer in gathering To succeed, you need to find “Hey, we want to make sure
intelligence, and maybe this something to hold on to, we provide you with a great
comes from my military days. experience. Would you mind
something to motivate you, taking 30 seconds to fill out a

From my military days, I like to something to inspire you. short survey so we know what
gather intelligence, basically. you like or don’t like?” And we
And so I always think of when get about 20 to 30 percent of
guests come in, you want to Tony Dorsett the people who actually end
learn as much as you can about up filling those out online or
them, what they like and don’t through the follow-up email.
like. When I had my restaurant, And we get a lot of great
we had a VIP book, and in that feedback from that on the
VIP book, we had people’s names. We also had anniversaries and types of promotions and stuff that they want, and the food specials
birthdays written down. I knew what they liked to drink, what they or drink specials, entertainment or whatever that might be for bars.
liked to eat, what their preferences were. And in pre-shift, we would We get a lot of valuable feedback, because it’s our customers telling
go over the book, like, “Mr. Smith is coming in. Don’t forget he likes us what they want. And that’s what the business is about, to a
a dirty martini”. And then when you sit down with them when they certain level. Sometimes, you’ll get these people saying they want half
come in, how cool is it to have a server walk up to the table and off food and dollar drinks, and you can’t run a business and your staff

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