• "It's all about how you make your customers feel. It's about creating positive, uplifting experiences and human relationships. Business, like life, is all about how you make people feel. It is that simple and that hard." Danny Meyer
  
  
• A.B.C.D: Always be connecting dots! Learn how to gather clues and heed cues to create an exceptional customer experience that generates great word of mouth, increases repeat business, and drives your top line.
  
  

• Ask yourself, are my team members "Agents" for my customers or "Gatekeepers" for me, the owner. Are they ON your customer's side and do they do things to make it happen for the customer? Agents do everything they can do to accommodate and get them the service they need OR are they "Gatekeepers" who hide behind policies and rules and make no attempt to find creative solutions to satisfy guests.
  
  

• Service is the technical delivery of a product. Hospitality is how the delivery of that product makes the recipient feel.
  

Tom Mazza's "Emerging Companies Group to Meet in August

For the first time since 2007, a new TMC group is forming!

The Emerging Companies Group is recruiting members from major cities in the US and Canada. The first ever meeting will be on August 24th and 25th in Philadelphia with a second meeting planned for Miami in January.

Tom Mazza Success Groups are founded on the principle that sharing best practices with each other, benchmarking financial information, and being exposed to my 20 years of knowledge and experience help in the growth of great companies.

More than 20 national "Operators of the Year" have been part of a success group. The cost of membership is extremely reasonable with only a 1 year commitment required.

For more information on joining the group, contact Tom at tom@tommazza.com or call 215-973-8201.

1. The "treat me like a stranger principle": If you are working together actively in the business, each of you needs a job description with clearly defined working hours, responsibilities and compensation. And "partner" status does not mean sub-par effort or work performance can be acceptable.
   
   
2. Communication: Communication is essential.  You are all functioning, productive, intelligent, adults. No storming off, no slamming doors, no shutting down. If you are working together you have to communicate with each other and you have to commit to working through challenges and difficulties. Leave 1982 behind, sibling rivalries etc. need to go away.
   
   
3. Boundaries: Wanda's bat mitzvah is a momentous family occasion. Focus on Wanda and be joyful that day even if she sounded like Elmer Fudd when she sang at synagogue.  Bringing business conversation in sucks the joy away from the day. You on your cell phone the entire event sends everyone the message that her "moment" is not really that important. Agree to observe boundaries. The reason you CHOSE the path of being an entrepreneur is that you truly want to create a better life. Make it happen!
   
   
4. Operating Agreement: How you make day to day decisions needs to be in writing and the rules need to be followed. YES, I agree that you cannot manage a company by "checking the agreement" but you can set parameters. Any spending over $1k needs both signatures on check is common.
   
   
5. Only those who produce like a big boy DESERVE a big boy check: Business and life are truly determined by the merit system. Those who produce get paid. Those who surf the web all day do not.
   
   
6. Succession Plan: Uncle Wally might be 81 years old with health problems out the Yazoo but if you do not have a clear and pre-determined exit strategy, my experience is that Uncle Wally will hang on to his job and his paycheck like grim death. Have a signed agreement in place on when the partners leave.