Restaurant marketing used to be both a time and money consuming process. However, today’s savvy restaurantuers have embraced social marketing whole heartedly and are reaping the rewards. Low to no cost, social media such as Facebook and Twitter, are fantastic tools to not only promote your business, but to build relationships and interact with existing, new and potential customers.

Today, Mashable posted a great article on the 13 Best Practices for Restaurants on Facebook. Check it out.

Along the lines of “there is more to being a chef than just cooking”, comes this uplifting article about a San Francisco based group working with low income communities. 

The program involves coaching would be Food Truck entrepreneurs about the process of writing business plans, finding funding and dealing with the necessary permits. Here’s hoping we will see more of these “Culinary Entrepreneurship” groups popping up around the country.

Pilot program helps cooks develop business plan.

The guys over at Mashable.com have posted an interesting article on the power of using social media to help build business for food truck start ups.  As I talk with owners and operators in this emerging market of the food industry, the power of social media is quickly becoming a strong tool for building a brand and developing a loyal following.

How Social Media Is Fueling the Food Truck Phenomenon.

In this TED video, Derek Sivers shows just how important the first follower (AKA: Sous Chefs) are to leadership effectiveness.  One of my mentors used to say that a leader without a follower is just out for a walk by himself.  Come on chefs….start a movement!

Eric Valasek posted a great article on his blog at RstaurantSchedular about preventing theft in your restaurant.  His article goes hand in hand with a conversation I had just yesterday discussing how chefs can use inventory manipulation to “steal” from the restaurant.  There are thousands of ways that theft occurs in food service operations and as a manager it is vital to do everything possible to prevent it.  Read the full article here: Methods to Curb Restaurant Theft | Improving Restaurant Management.

Several hours worth of high quality lectures have been posted to youtube by Harvard.  Some of the best chef’s of our time have contributed. Check them out this weekend.

Videos of Harvard lectures available » blog.khymos.org.

Did you know that if Facebook were a country it would be the fourth largest in the world?  Facebook is the undisputed king of social media with over half a billion users estimated by December 2010.  Have you opened your restaurant location there yet?  The website Nation’s Restaurant News offers an excellent article on Facebook Tips for Restaurants.

For those of you wondering what the hell social media is and what it’s good for, check out this video:

I mentor many young cooks who are looking for work and lament to me on how they cannot find a good job.  Almost all of them say that they have spent days or even weeks filling out applications and emailing resumes, all to no avail. The best advice I can give these cooks is get out there and get in front of the manager or the chef who is doing the hiring.

Face to face is still the best way to get hired.

Most chefs and managers do not have the time to read through an onslaught of emailed resumes, especially since a large portion of these applicants are not properly qualified for the  job anyway. For instance, the last time I placed a job posting on Craigslist, I received over 100 responses and resumes. After a quick scan, most of these responses end up being deleted.

The hostess is yet another road block for the kitchen job prospect.  In most restaurants, the hostess is seldom aware of any job openings in the kitchen and in fact will probably respond that they are not hiring just to avoid having to find an application or walk back and bother the chef.

The best way to find a kitchen job is to walk in the back door.  After all, the back door to the restaurant is the shortest path to the chef.  Think about it for a moment.  Where do the cooks enter? The sales reps? The delivery guys? Exactly, the back door.  The unwritten code is that those who belong in the kitchen, enter through the kitchen, and all others enter through the front.  Walking in the back door immediately says “here is one of our own” to the kitchen staff as well as to the chef.  Showing yourself as already being a part of the kitchen culture, builds instant rapport and gives you a huge leg up.  I have seen this technique work many times! Give it a try and let us know how it works for you in the comments section.

Great worksheet for calculating a Butcher’s Yield:

Google Docs Link: Click Here

For Excel Download: Butcher’s Yield Report

Here is a superb video on the science behind motivation, and trust me when I tell you that you may be quite surprised by the results. This is an animated video of a talk given by Dan Pink at the TED Conference.