How This Restaurant Owner Earns Respect and Loyalty from Her Employees

If you’re interested in learning how to own a restaurant with a great atmosphere for guests and employees, I want to introduce you to Gina Sidebottom, my guest for this episode. Gina's family has owned Maria's Mexican restaurant, which was started by her mother, Maria, in 1992. They love serving their community not only great food, but great service. In this episode of my podcast, The Restaurant Prosperity Formula, Gina talks about her journey with systems and profitability and how she gained free time, but more importantly, how she can help you make your team members feel appreciated. We talk about what she does on a daily basis to make that happen and what you can do to make your employees want to work for you and stay longer. The beautiful part about it, it won't cost you a dime.

It took me almost two years to get Gina to do this podcast because she does not like talking about herself. But I couldn’t let her avoid it any longer because her story is so helpful for other restaurant owners, especially family-owned restaurants in smaller communities.

I have two reasons why I wanted to bring Gina on:

1. She was an early member of my restaurant coaching group, and she made huge changes. She worked hard and has the results to show for it. Her story is inspiring and validation that it is possible to own a restaurant and have a life outside of it, even if it’s a family restaurant.
2. She is an incredible communicator and gets the most out of her people. She has a system she follows to make sure people feel appreciated, listened to and cared about. It has paid dividends in her being fully staffed and employing the same people for many, many years.

While she is a great case study, her skills with employee management are something restaurant owners can benefit learning. This is especially important today where we have labor shortages and people wonder why people don't want to work and why managers aren't communicating with their team very well.

Tune into this conversation to hear Gina talk about:

• What was going on at the time and why she reached out to start to work together.
• The person/role that made the biggest difference in her most recent success.
• The progress she made in a year, when prior to joining my restaurant coaching program she thought they might have to close their doors.
• The area in her restaurant that she made the biggest changes, having previously thought it was untouchable.
• Her trick for communicating with her team members and why it's so successful.
• How she teaches her management team to do the same thing.
• Tips to get started in following this same communication tactic.

Click the podcast player above to listen in, or you can watch the video on YouTube, click here to download the latest episode.