Mistakes to Avoid

The title should be renamed to "Biggest Mistakes any Business owner can make"

... and someone pointed that out to me at one point, which I quickly evaluated and not realizing prior to this statement, it was the biggest mistake I was making.

Getting to Comfortable

That’s right, the Number 1 mistake any business owner or restaurateur can make is becoming too comfortable, maybe it took you 15 years to establish your restaurant, pizza shop or fine eatery.  Steady cash flow, steady customer base is all things we dream off when starting a  company, and now you have that.  This may actually be the worst part of the business, and it happened to us at one point.  

I got comfortable.  Somewhat feeling that I was established and went off on a little binge of somewhat caring less about my current customers, not purposely just naturally.  Unfortunately for a very brief period that goal of reaching the next level was still there but I started overlooking the things that were important to the foundation of the company.  

I ran into a local pizza restaurant owner who quickly woke me up with one statement, I still remember it to this day and the number one suggestion I have to every business I work with - is his statement..  Don’t get too comfortable, everyone gets too comfortable and then it all falls down, slowly but it all goes away.  

Always take care of your foundation as a priority, those people that eat on a weekly basis, those people that do business with you for years even through the few bad experiences, they continue to buy from you. In addition always continue to reach more new customers, it’s just a circle of business and the moment you stop reaching new business or taking care of your original business - the business goes from Established, to Mature to Exit real quick.  The goal is to delay that “Maturity” stage as long as possible and to keep maturing.  

I learned and continue to learn based on that statement, I have watched well established restaurants fail and also seen restaurants which established themselves in very unfavorable economic conditions.  I have seen a pizza owner shop who after so many years continues to keep everything meticulous in his shop, business is slow - the pizza is still constantly fresh and the place is extremely clean, pleasant to come in.  This same pizza owner is also constantly trying to adapt, trying to pick up new customers but also making sure his current customers are extremely satisfied.  

I have also seen very established restaurants take a  nosedive at the point when they got too comfortable.  Pricing went up, portions went down, marketing stopped and a well established business of 15 years is now closed awaiting renovation by a new owner.

A Restaurant business is a thing in itself, just like any flower or plant, it keeps growing -

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