Top Of The Table

Christopher De Voss

Aug. 12, 2001

Incentives

This is a two-part piece; one aimed at you restaurant managers/owners, and the other at us lowly servers. What we are talking about is incentives or in Rocky and Bullwinkle style, How to increase sales without really trying.

On the manager/owner side:
One thing to keep in mind, no matter how good a server is, or how much money he or she may make, this can be a very repetitive job. This can be a very repetitive job. This can be a very repetitive job.

See what I mean?

So how do you overcome this? Glad you asked, or rather glad I asked, because a lot of times you don't listen to me, but I'll still cash your checks. What are you paying me for anyway? Motivate your employees with incentives. Here is the thing, it does not have to cost you an arm and leg of lamb, it can something small like free dessert, free specialty drink, free leg of lamb. Here is another tip, a lot of managers run incentives nightly; you don't have to do that. You can run an incentive weekly or even take the entire month. Say your restaurant is big on wine sales, run the incentive for the entire month, track the sales of each server, highest sales gets a bottle of wine. So, now you have given away a $30 bottle of wine, but maybe gained an extra $2000 in wine sales, for a net profit of $1970. (Also a good year for Merlot.)

Hey chefs, you have a dish not selling well and is going to get the waste bucket? Incentives! Your servers can sell anything given the right motivation. You'll have that clams over peanut butter aioli crusted tobacco crushed liver soup out of your kitchen in no time.

On the server side:
Sometimes, actually a lot of times, your management leaders are not going to run incentives. You make money, you chose the job, your on your own, that's a common attitude. What can you do?

Motivate yourself! Hey, there dirty mind, I said motivate.

Set your own goals and treat yourself to something small at the end of the night. Let's say you break a 1000 in sales, go buy yourself an ice cream, a stiff drink, or whatever…your choice. It's a great way to keep your mind fresh, so you don't sound like that broken record at each table. You can make it really fun too. I like to sell a dish I really hate sometimes, and see how many I can sell. Why? It keeps my menu spiels fresh and helps me remember why I hate the dish in the first place.