By: Earl Sullivan
The traditional model in business is sell at a higher value than your costs. When things get tough, you cut your costs and that boosts your bottom line. However, I take a very different approach to growing our bottom line.
I believe if you take care of your employee, they will take care of the customer and that will take care of the profit. Employee engagement has multiple positive effects that extend beyond just the sales cycle. By engaging with your employees, you get to understand just what makes them tick. Are they purpose driven? Are they money motivated? Are they seeking positive affirmation? Each employee will have a different motivation and how you approach, coach and reward each of these people will be just as different as well.
Housing insecurity and food insecurity are the two biggest stressors in hospitality workers lives. If they were working shift work, depend on tips or if they are dependent on your business being busy to have hours, they will always have the risk of being without enough pay to meet the essentials. Can you adjust your staffing to accommodate more consistent hours or fewer staff so that all the staff get more hours. There is obviously a risk that if someone is sick and you do not have additional people to bring in, you can get challenged but a dedicated employee has so many more benefits than just someone showing up. At our winery, all the full-time employees are salaried with full healthcare, retirement plan and additional benefits that allow for them to just have this one job.
To meet the threshold for an exempt employee, they must be independent of a manager and lead their own efforts. Each of our employees has sections of the business that they are responsible for in addition to working in the tasting room several days a week. This includes items like: retail sales, community engagement, social media and marketing and corporate sales. These additional responsibilities have their own corporate goals and they are managed by the employee. The employee reports up to the ownership on a bi-weekly basis to update against the goals while using the time to get mentoring and feedback all the while they are managing their own portion of the business. This process engages them at a different level in the company thereby tying them to our mission in a more meaningful way. This security and “binding” work together to create longevity, but more importantly, a sense of purpose for the company’s wellbeing.
Now that you have secured the employee, your job is to direct them to secure the customer. Do they have the authority to fix an issue, give a gift, upgrade a customer, or sneak them into an exclusive event? If they do not you are limiting your best tools to get customers more engaged with the brand.
• How would you feel if you got a comped glass of wine because you had just experienced a bad day?
• What would your dedication be to a winery that “found” two extra tickets to an exclusive event?
• How would you feel if you were at the winery and mentioned your anniversary dinner and the person taking care of you called ahead and paid for two glasses of champagne to be delivered as you sat down.
These are all things our associates have done without having to ask for permission. The person that got the comped glass of wine has spent over $10,000 at the winery this year alone. Freeing the hands of your tasting room associates is not without guardrails. If you do it indiscriminately or inconsistently it will not work. It must be done with intention and intention requires big picture guidelines. No, they are not allowed to raid the cellar and take the last bottle of that special vintage but they can get into the cellar with a predetermined list of wines available to enhance the customer experience.
Our team has a set of hospitality guidelines that are both internal centric (how we treat each other) and customer centric. As long as the employee is following the guidelines, they are free to do whatever they feel is appropriate for the guest experience. As we tell them daily, every time that door opens you have the opportunity to make someone’s day. A bad day can be made better, a regular day can be made special or a good day made beyond memorable. Each guest interaction can be a magic moment if your team is trained and more importantly empowered to make those decisions.
We have taken care of the employees and they are in turn taking care of the customers. With all of this, our profits should follow. Should is a strong word if you are not monitoring and mentoring the team. Just because they have security and buy-in and the training and empowerment to do the work does not mean it will be intuitive or that it will naturally flow. Mentoring and monitoring the team is a critical step in making sure all the efforts that you have put into creating a memorable moment actually come to fruition.
It is simple physics, an object in motion will stay in motion and an object in rest will stay in rest without a gentle nudge – gentle being the key word. If you are overbearing in the process, you will discourage the independent, reasonable, and prudent thought that is necessary to make good decisions. Giving good direction is necessary for even the most independent and self-sufficient employee. No one will ever think through the issues more than the owner/manager will. They see the big picture (since that is their job) and have the ability to direct the team based on where the company is going versus where it is. Employees with good training, a guideline, and a nudge in the direction the company is headed will be the greatest asset to making sure your customers are taken care of in a meaningful and intentional manner.
Now you need to ask: Have I taken care of the biggest concerns of my employees so that they are able to come to work engaged. Have I given proper guidelines so the engaged employee can be proactive? Have I done this in a consistent manner so that the employees feel empowered and understand it is important? I believe that if you answer is “yes” to these questions your employees and customers will be much more satisfied leading to a stronger business with higher profits.
About the Auhtor
Starting in 2008, Earl Sullivan made his first red blend. Since that, he and his wife have grown their winery into an award-winning winery that has been featured in Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, and Sunset Magazine to name a few. They produce 10,000 cases of award-winning wine in Garden City, Idaho and run a hospitality consulting firm focused on high touch hospitality across a wide range of business sectors. Contact Earl at earl@telayawine.com.
