Celebrity chef and entrepreneur Robert Irvine reveals his top strategies for effective communication, overcoming challenges, and building thriving small businesses.
Effective communication is crucial for small business success, whether it’s with customers, employees, or partners. What strategies do you recommend for entrepreneurs to improve their communication skills and foster a strong, engaged team?
Effective communication doesn’t just happen. It’s a product of trust, and you can’t earn trust without being completely honest with everyone involved. That means making business partners and customers aware of not just the upside of doing business with you, but also the potential risks and trouble spots of a particular deal or situation, and letting them know they are not bearing that risk on their own and that you’re doing everything you can to mitigate that risk.
In long-term relationships, it means earnestly making an effort to get to know them and understand what’s important to them. This enables you to bring them more opportunities that make sense to them.
Resilience is key for any entrepreneur. What’s your advice for business owners facing unexpected challenges or financial hardships?
Your business — indeed, your life — is never as good as the best day and never as bad as the worst day. There is no life or business without setbacks, challenges, and hardship. You’re going to make mistakes. You may make catastrophic mistakes. If self-flagellation worked, I’d say have at it — beat yourself up. Call yourself stupid over and over. Unfortunately, that doesn’t work. It’s too much of an easy way out, even if it doesn’t seem that way.
When you’ve made a mistake, that’s the time to bear down and do everything you can to learn from the mistake so you don’t make the same mistake again. Failing is one thing. Failing the same way twice is unacceptable.
You’ve turned around many failing businesses. Can you share a specific success story that highlights the impact of strong operational management?
The Country Cow in New Hampshire is one that sticks out. When I got there, it was saddled with massive debt, and the partners who owned the restaurant were at odds. They were a divorced couple who tried to stay business partners, but the ex-husband, who ran the kitchen, lost his passion, and his lousy attitude trickled down into every aspect of the business. He treated the servers poorly, so they started doing a bad job. He made substandard food that kept customers away. It was broken in every sense.
When he left and his ex-wife took over, her passion had the exact opposite effect. She was organized, thorough, and fair with employees. They were more excited to come to work, giving customers a better experience, and the food was also massively improved. The restaurant isn’t just out of debt; it’s a real moneymaker.
How can small businesses leverage customer feedback to improve their products and services?
You should take customer feedback to heart, but you also have to remember that people won’t go online to leave a review unless they had an amazingly wonderful experience or an amazingly terrible one. Few people are logging on to report ho-hum, forgettable experiences. That’s why you want to offer quick surveys — in-person or online via email afterward — to encourage the feedback. It’s not just valuable data; giving customers a chance to offer negative feedback in person will often stop them from slamming you on Google because they feel they’ve already been heard.
Technology is transforming the way businesses operate. What are some must-have tools or innovations that small businesses should adopt?
You need to stay on top of every new innovation that’s being embraced, because every innovation shifts customer expectations across industries. Free delivery did not have implications just for Amazon customers; it’s expected everywhere now. Ditto with mobile ordering and options for same-day delivery, curbside pickup, in-store pickup, kiosk ordering, etc. The consumer has been given endless options for how they spend their hard-earned money. If you won’t treat the customer like royalty, rest assured, someone else will.
You’ve built an incredible career in the restaurant industry and beyond. What’s the best business advice you’ve ever received?
Nothing is permanent. That goes for failure as well as success. That means that no matter how bad things might seem, hard work can get you out of the hole. It also means you can’t take any success you’ve enjoyed for granted. Yesterday was yesterday. Anything you get today, you have to go out and earn. Ultimately, this is not just business advice, but life advice. Stay here. Today. In this moment. Not ruminating on the past or daydreaming about the future. Right now — that’s where all the power is.
