Articles

Restaurateur Schools Me on Profits / Culture

Hard to believe we’re already getting into baseball and softball season!

We were at softball tryouts last week for my 6-year-old (admittedly ridiculous), and I saw a buddy who owns a number of local restaurants.

We were catching up, discussing upcoming plans, new spots they are opening, etc. And the convo turned to sales, marketing and customer service. Surprise, surprise.

I love learning from business owners in other industries. And I find the restaurant game particularly fascinating because it’s so dang hard to be successful over the long-term.

So I’m sharing a few nuggets of their success today. And also how you can apply these concepts to your practice.

1. Flip tables + Quality Service = Profit

We were talking about making money as a restaurant. And obviously there are a lot of pieces to that, but one of the big ones is how many times you can flip a table in a night. (i.e. how many different parties can you serve at one table?). The more groups of people you get through your restaurant, the more product you can sell and the more money you make.

Apparently a lot of restaurants can’t get this right, and only flip a table 1-2x during the night. I asked him why, and he said it’s a mix of not having proper processes in place, and not having efficiencies build into the menu.

He said for example, every item on their menu – from the time the order comes to the time it hits the table – is a max of 12 minutes. (Obviously a key to flipping tables is being timely.)

In addition to making more $$, this brings higher customer satisfaction and the ability to serve more people.

How do you apply it? Find your bottlenecks and fix them. Why do you have 30-60 minute wait times? Why are consults taking 1.5 – 2 hours? Solve it, get more people through, raise patient satisfaction and make more money.

2. Invest in the best.

Along the lines of creating efficiencies so you can flip tables quickly, the topic of hardware came up.

We were talking about this cauliflower dish they have, which basically tastes like awesome mashed potatoes. And apparently a big part of that is the type of oven they cook in.

I can’t remember what he called it, but it’s like a $75k oven. Sounds like a lot to me. But the quality + speed + dependability + results it provides make it well worth the price tag.

Going back to point #1, part of setting yourself up for great service, a solid product AND efficiency is investing in the proper equipment.

For them, it’s the fancy oven, adequate burners and kitchen set up. For you, it could be anything from a CRM to SMS automation, a new diagnostic tool that saves you time, even an upgraded laser suite. You get the picture.

3. They are inefficient in their staffing.

You didn’t misread that. And I thought this was interesting. We discussed their hiring process and how they train their people. And he mentioned he keeps 1 extra manager on for each of his locations. Like if a restaurant needs 5 managers to run at peak efficiency, he will go with 6.

Why? Keeps everyone from being spread so thin they get stressed. And if someone leaves, goes on vacation or gets sick, they still have enough to function well. To paraphrase his words – “Sure it’s an extra $70k/year per location that we’re spending, but everyone is happier and everything works better. Small price to pay…”

Does that mean you need to carry a bunch of extra employees? Not necessarily, but you should think about your practice the same way a college football coach thinks about his team.

YEAH you might have a good team now, but are you always recruiting? Looking for new talent? Looking for more ways to leverage your current talent? Preparing for your next step – a new location, expanding your current office, offering a new service, etc.?

4. Success leaves clues. Follow them.

I told him I thought they had one of the best happy hours in town.

“You like that? Yeah it’s a carbon copy of what <REDACTED> restaurant has always done for their happy hour, works really well. We started our careers there, and learned a lot about what to do (and what not to do) in our restaurants.”

For you? Stop trying to figure everything out. Stop reinventing the wheel. Learn from other successful practices. Hire us to come in and teach you how to sell more surgeries while giving a great customer experience.

No need to spend time, money and frustration stumbling through problems when they’ve already been solved.

I’ll be going in-depth on all these (and more) during this week’s “Jam Session” coaching call in our private coaching community. So if you’re a member, fwd this to your team to jump on the meet-up tomorrow with us!

And if this was helpful and / or interesting to you (or not), hit reply and let me know. Your feedback is appreciated.

Enjoy your week,

Troy “Happiest Hour” Cole

Cowboy Gives a Lesson on Value (Reiners vs. Ropers)

Fun fact: Our house is 20 minutes from Taylor Sheridan’s ranch. If you don’t know, that’s the dude who created Yellowstone, Lioness and several other rad shows.

Between watching Yellowstone and going out to his ranch (where he hosts cutting horse competitions), I’ve been amazed at the physical abilities of some of these horses.

I’ve got a buddy who’s big into horses, and I was asking him the other day about the different “specialties.”

He got to explaining the general difference between the folks who do “Reining” and those who do “Roping.”

Now the Ropers are just what they sound like – you ride a horse to rope a calf or steer.

Reiners are different. If you’ve watched Yellowstone, you’ve seen the scenes where someone is “sliding” a horse, or they’re doing really fast spins on the horse. This is called Reining. And best I can tell, it’s basically a show-off competition. (And looks quite impressive)

What’s interesting is the different personalities that each specialty attracts.

(Obviously there are exceptions to what I’m about to say, so don’t take offense if you’re in the horse game and fall into one of these camps. This is based on my Cowboy friend – who is a roper btw – extensive experience in the industry)

The Ropers and Reiners are apparently quite different, according to my buddy. And while I can’t some of the stories I was told, one difference that’s helpful to YOU is understanding the way they perceive value.

He was telling me how folks who specialize in horse care – farriers, dentists, vets, etc – tend to have different experiences between Ropers and Reiners.

For example, a Roper will call you once a year when their horse finally has a big issue going on, then they’ll gripe about the price to get it fixed. Almost like playing defense, and being reactive.

The Reiners on the other hand, don’t gripe about price. They have one priority – take care of my horse. “Im happy to pay a pro to make sure my horse is always good to go.” That’s the mentality. Playing offense, proactive.

One is cost-focused. The other is value-focused.

One is concerned with what they have to put into the investment (cost). The other is focused on what they get out of the investment (value).

One is focused only on the here and now. The other is focused on long-term benefits.

So on that note, 2 points to ponder for you today:

1. What type of patients are you trying to court?

Reiners (value-focused, recognize quality) or Ropers (cost-focused, see you as a commodity).

I assume you want more Reiners. Cool – next step is to figure out what are you doing (and what you NEED to do) to showcase value + premium patient experience and ATTRACT that kind of patient.

2. What kinda cowboy are YOU?

Do you operate in life as a Reiner or Roper?

Are you making value-driven decisions? Are you investing in yourself, your team? Are you playing offense?

OR do you have more of a scarcity outlook? Cost-focused? Reactive? Playing defense?

You may say, “Troy, there are some areas / decisions where I’m all Reiner. And others where I take more of a Roper approach.”

That’s not necessarily all bad, but it could mean you’re missing opportunities. Be aware of that, and make sure you aren’t ropin’ when you should be reinin’.

So there ya go – a couple questions of self-reflection for you today. And as a lil bonus, here’s a link to a helluva reining horse run on YouTube. Really quite fascinating. Enjoy!

– Troy “Let it rein” Cole

PS – If you resonate with what I’m saying here, but you’re not sure where to start… and you’d like someone to take the guesswork out of all this…

you know where to find me. 💪🏻

An anxiety-laden sales experience I think of often

As a sales and communications coach, I mentally bookmark sales experiences that were impactful to me.

Here’s one I’ve never shared (not sure why), but think of a few times a year.

My alma mater, Texas Christian University, has an athletic apparel contract with Nike. Nike does all their uniforms for all their sports, and as such, they create awesome TCU products for retail purchase.

One of these items is their annual TCU Custom Nike Pegasus running shoe. Every year, they release a new TCU-customized version of their popular running shoe model, which I often buy.

A few years ago, weeks before Christmas, I was with the family at a Dick’s Sporting Goods store. They had one of the TCU Nike shoes on display, and I was eyeing them. I wasn’t in a buying mood that day, having spent a gazillion dollars on kids gifts already.

But the salesperson came up to me, and this was the exchange we had:

HIM: “You like those Horned Frog shoes, eh?”

ME: “Yeah, they’re pretty rad.”

HIM: “What size are you looking for?”

ME: “I’m a 12.” HIM: “Oooh, man I might be sold out of those. Let me go take a look…”

ME: Experiencing brief anxiety over the idea of losing something I didn’t even actually want to buy in the first place

HIM (After a few minutes): “Yo, I found a pair back there.”

ME: “Awesome, thanks.” Proceeds to purchase without a second thought

Why does this sales experience stick out to me so much?

I wasn’t even looking to buy, but he got me into a buying conversation by assuming I was and asking me my size.
I don’t know if he truly thought they were sold out of size 12s, or if that was a tactic. Either way, it was good. Because I immediately became concerned they may NOT have my size available.
By talking about possibly being sold out, it gave me the perception that these shoes might be hard to get in general, so I should snag them.
The tension that was built was naturally relieved when he came back with my shoes in hand. It was like a mini story that I was a part of.
Feeling like the mission might fail (they wouldn’t have my size), and realizing that he made the mission succeed, led me to feel a slight sense of reciprocation. “He did his part, so I have to do mine and buy the shoes.”

What’s your takeaway from this, and how do you apply it to your practice? Well, as often as we like to “Make things happen” for people, the selective use of “I don’t know, let me see what I can do” is quite impactful. Even if you know you can make it happen.

There’s a concept of “effort” that correlates with quality of service. If this guy had just responded, “Cool, I’ll go get them,” that feels more like order-taking (low-status). But the fact that he had to go look and see if they had any, that felt more like “I’m gonna try to make this happen for you” (high-status).

How can you apply this? You can do it with scheduling patients on certain days / times. Same-day post-ops. Adding patients to surgery days.

Anything that would add convenience to the patient, you can go with a “Oh, I have an idea but let me see if I can make it happen.” Even if you’re pretty sure you CAN, make sure they know you’re having to go to some kind of effort to do it.

This is one of the many persuasive techniques we teach in our E3 Conversion System Bootcamp. As you can see, it’s designed to be influential without being pushy or aggressive.

So if you want to book more surgeries in 2025, and you want to do it without coming off the least bit salesy, this may be the program for you.

Learn more here and snag a discovery call to see if the bootcamp is a good fit for your team.

– Troy “Pumped Up Kicks” Cole

T-Cole’s Fun Fact for More Surgeries in 2025

I have 3 go-to fun facts I deploy any time I’m involved in an ice breaker activity.

I was a D1 Collegiate Cheerleader (Go Frogs!)
I grew up on a Miniature Donkey Farm in the Deep East Texas Pineywoods
I got talked into doing a bodybuilding competition a few years ago.

Fun Fact #3 is what we’re focusing on to move your practice in the right direction for 2025.

This particular “physique show” experiment occurred 3 years and 2 weeks ago. As such, this time of year I see it pop up in my “Memories” on Facebook stories.

And at the time, I wrote a number of articles comparing (and contrasting) the preparation of a fitness competition with sound practice growth principles.

We’ve had a bunch of folks join our ecosystem in the last few years who’ve never seen those essays. And frankly even if you have, they’re worth a re-read. (Heck I revisited them and took a few good nuggets out of them myself…)

So for your reading pleasure this weekend, here ya go. Linked in order for your convenience…

1 of 3 – Sometimes you have to borrow belief

2 of 3 – The boring thing works (so do more boring)

3 of 3 – This 1 Aspect of Practice Growth (is completely different from bodybuilding)

Enjoy,

Troy “Pump You Up” Cole

The opposite of nice isnt naughty

This time of year we’re bombarded with messages, songs and movies about being “naughty or nice.” Here’s a holiday truth bomb for you:

Sometimes being “nice” is the worst thing you can do for your patients. I know, I know. That sounds about as blasphemous as saying Die Hard isn’t a Christmas movie. (But it totally is.)

Your patients aren’t coming to you because they want a new BFF. They’re coming because they want their vision fixed. They want clarity. They want confidence. And sometimes, being too “nice” gets in the way of giving them what they really need.

Research shows that overly polite communication can actually spike patient anxiety. Wild, right? It’s like when your doctor starts a sentence with “I hate to tell you this, but…” Your heart rate probably just jumped reading that.

When we’re too “nice,” we dance around important points. We sugarcoat crucial information. We leave patients confused and uncertain. And confused patients rarely become scheduled patients.

Think about it. Would you trust a surgeon who says “Um, maybe, if you’d like, we could possibly consider doing the procedure next month… if that works for you?”

Heck no. You want someone who confidently says “Here’s what you need, and here’s why.” And a team who reinforces that with the same level of confidence.

But here’s the tricky part – you can be direct without being a total Grinch. You can be warm AND assertive. It’s not an either-or situation.

And that’s the essence of our E3 Conversion System. It helps teams nail that perfect balance between warmth and authority. Because at the end of the day, the best gift you can give your patients is clarity and confidence in their decision.

You don’t have to choose. You can do both. And if you need a reminder, the first couple modules of the Bootcamp are a great refresher going into the new year!

Ready to stop being “nice” and start being effective?

Cheers,

Troy “Sometimes naughty is exactly right” Cole

PS – Have a Merry Christmas and/or Happy Hanukah this week. Wishing you and your fam the Peace of the Lord as you celebrate together.