Secret of success: high rating on Yelp?
Posted on November 13, 2013 by Valentina Di Pietro, One of Thousands of Career Coaches on Noomii.
Success is the main topic in coaching session. The client must define what success is for him/her. Here what is success for me as restaurant owner.
That might be one, but not the most important one. Everything that is online these day takes away a little bit of the human connection that everyone longs for. My blog too takes away of the humaneness from my thoughts and feeling. I am dealing with a keyboard right now, although I am reaching out to brains and hearts on the other side of the screen.
Success: be human and don’t forget guests or clients are people at the end of the day. They are people, with the same amount of insecurities, same amount of experience, same amount of desire to be happy.
Sometimes I stop in the middle of a busy dining room. I stop and I look at the guests, when they do know that I am looking. I try to read their body language, what they are telling to each other, if they are lying what they eating and drinking. If they are happy…in general, not just that moment.
Where do they come from? Are they lonely? How did they end up in my restaurant?
Sometimes I see couple that do not share a word for the whole meal. Sometimes I see couples where only one talks. Sometimes I see couples on their first date and sometimes old couples on their 115th date…and these old couple do not hold their iPhones in their hands. They just hold hands.
Success to me is understanding that behind a guest there is a story, and somehow, by the way they talk to us, and the way they eat with us, I can have a glimpse of the backstage of their lives.
When I feel connected to them, then I feel that I am succeeding, as a restaurant owner: I feed you, what an honor. I feel you, what a joy.
They will come back — feeling this way. They want to be felt and understood.
