By: Jon Taffer is a club and bar genius. He understands the science involved in getting the most out of a restaurant, and has been on TV saving clubs and bars from closing their doors. Well, those who listen to him.
While we know a couple of people who’ve been on the show, and they simply don’t like him, we can understand why. He comes in as the expert, to people who feel they know it all. Well, if you know it all, why are you failing and asking an expert to come in to bail you out?
A lot of what Taffer (Twitter: @JonTaffer) says on his show “Bar Rescue”, can not only be applied to restaurants, but any service-based business like being a DJ or entertainment company. We’ve learned a lot from watching his show over the years.
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One of the best pieces of advice comes during the open of every show when Taffer says, “I don’t embrace excuses, I embrace solutions.” This goes great for any business, however we’ve heard all kinds of excuses from some vendors that we used to do work with. We say “used to” because they’re either out of business, or struggling so much that they’re about to go out of business.
Also in Taffer’s open, “I believe that you could do this.” And he says this to someone who even casual watchers of the show go, “No, no way.” Taffer knows the little things that need to get done, and know that anyone can do those little things, as long as they stop making excuses and get it done.
Everybody has a line that’s associated with them, and “Shut it down” is Taffer’s. When you’re in the DJ business, you can’t “shut it down” without suffering some sort of financial or personal loss. Sometimes, you need to just shut down everything in your life and focus on getting your DJ business together. Take a day or two to really focus on what you want to keep, what you need to get rid of and clear out the old. Sometimes you need to take time to better focus on your market, your prices, your promotions, or other things you might want to start offering, or stop offering.
Spike’s Bar Rescue Schedule and Past Shows
One of the little things that we do, is not allow our DJs to drink on duty. While some DJs feel it’s part of the job, we’re professional DJs and we don’t know of another profession in which a professional would be allowed to drink on the job, unless your job is professional beer or alcohol tester.
When we saw Taffer bring it up on the show, that bartenders should not be drinking on the job, that solidified our stance on the issue as well.
“Greatness doesn’t come easy, it’s a fight.” – @jontaffer #MondayMotivation
— Bar Rescue (@BarRescue) June 15, 2015
Something else he talks about on the show is evolution. You may have been a success 2, 3, 4 years ago, but you’re not a success now because while all of your competitors have gone on to see what made you successful and emulate it, you just stayed right where you were. The same old thing doesn’t work every year.
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In one show set in Louisiana, a restaurant took an idea from a former restaurant they worked with and nearly copied the idea, instead of coming up with something better. Mike Veeck, the baseball marketing genius, has said to find something someone is doing, and make it 10% better. The bar owner in this show took the same thing and just copied it. When Taffer came in to make them a success, he made the idea 10% better and helped to brand that bar separate from the former.
It’s amazing the places you can learn something to make your business better, in our case it’s come from reality TV and sports! The best piece of advice to remember is you will find advice in the most unusual ways. It could come from a TV show, watching an interaction at a restaurant, or listening to someone speak about something that has absolutely nothing to do with your business. The key is to find a way to make a successful plan work for you.
