If you want to work for John
C. Miller, then you’d best be prepared to embrace the
“Bueno way.”
As president and CEO of Taco
Bueno Restaurants LP, Miller
knows how he wants things to
be run and the experience his
customers should have, so he
refuses to settle for less than
the highest standards, which he
is constantly looking to improve
upon.
“We celebrate the little victories, but then we set new goals
that have some stretch in them
every year,” he says. “No one
should ever rest or be content
in their latest achievement
because the competition isn’t
going to rest.”
To stay ahead of the competition at the $183 million restaurant chain, which has more
than 180 locations, he continuously measures progress and
gets feedback from his customers so he knows what he’s
doing right and what he needs
to change.
Smart Business spoke with Miller about how he knows
what to do next.
Establish good metrics. If you
don’t have ways to measure,
you don’t know how to assess
what to do next in the business.
You’d have to be lucky, or you’d
be on your way to a short life.
What adds value to the organization? There’s all sorts of things
you measure, but the measures
have to be anchored in why any
of those matter. Quite simply,
what you value is what the customer values.
Nothing is sacred except that
the guest returns. They have a
lot of competitive choices.
Those measures are against
what customers say matter,
then what our shareholders say
matter, and then what our
employees say matter. If you
think of those as a wheel that
rolls nicely down the street
when they’re balanced, it works
pretty well, but if they’re out of
balance, the company doesn’t
work well.
Talk to customers. Sam Walton
said it best — if you don’t know
what to do next, if there’s not
real clarity around where you’re
doing well and where your performance is slight, then go ask
your customer.
Know your customers. You
can get it with surveys, from
employee opinion, but there’s
nothing as valuable as face
time with real customers that
you can synthesize.
Listen to those consumers
on what they’d like to see. You
have to constantly ask. Sometimes, the consumer doesn’t
know how to tell you — you
have to twist their arms. If you
ask a straight-up question like,
‘What can I add to the menu?’
sometimes they can’t answer.
If you probe a little deeper,
you find out.
I interview a lot of guests
and employees. If there’s an
enthusiastic response and
endorsement, I’ll probe more,
trying to get to the bottom of
why they were delighted.
If they weren’t delighted, ‘What
would have made you happy?
What kept you from being excited about the business?’ You get
to the heart of what the consumer is looking for.
Listen better, then assess. If
you’re listening and then feel
like, ‘Well, that’s not how we do
it. I wish more people liked it
the way we did it,’ then you’re
not really listening. If you’re
really listening, you’re listening
for what you can take action on
to improve your business.
Consumers are not static.
They’re constantly changing
based on what’s available to
them, but it takes a commitment to be engaged with your
consumers.
Assess where you’re at against
what customers say matter, and
give yourself an honest assessment with your team every year.
What are your strengths
against what consumers say?
Protect those. What are your
weaknesses? Improve those.
What are your opportunities —
things you aren’t doing that customers would like to see you
do? Add those.