If we were a restaurant.
If you give a look at my 2013 bucket list (still sacredly preserved in my fav app Clear), one of the to do’s that still remain unchecked is “Do a mini MBA” (I didn’t have enough money to afford a real one — neither I have probably now). It was 2013 and we started turning from a disorganised couple of freelancers with benefits to a company. A real company. Shit. And we didn’t have any idea on how to deal with it. An MBA seemed to me a way real entrepreneurs get educated on cashflows and capital assets.
Now, 2015 has just come and I still didn’t get any MBA, but since a few months I’ve been addicted to one of those TV shows about cooking and there, between frying pans, camera close ups on crying faces and innatural paper towels’ product placements, I found my entrepreneurship guru: Antonino Cannavacciuolo.
In the Italian edition of Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, named Cucine da Incubo, the imposing, colossal, 2 Michelin stars chef Cannavacciuolo arrives in creepy restaurants -that regularly offer frozen meat when they’re placed at the seaside and frozen fish when among the mountains- and with his suggestions given in an unmistakable Naples’ accent and his notorious pats on the back to misplaced kitchen staff members, transforms them in fancy and mouthwatering-effect venues, with super instagrammable dishes (although sometimes they contains weird ingredients like sweetbreads or snails).
After at least a dozen of episodes I’ve been watching the show, I can say that the main problems of these restaurants are 3:
1 — Disorganisation
2— Too large yet not coherent menu
3—Incredibly long waiting times
Why am I talking about restaurants? Because I found that a small studio like ours has a lot in common with these small local businesses: we’re 7 people, we work on tight deadlines and clients rarely order the standard plat du jour — they look for customised dishes or for recipes we had last season but now not anymore. And worse: often they change their mind when the order is already hanged in the kitchen. Just like in a real restaurant.
I think that our studio is miles away far from the restaurants ridiculously showed during Cucine da Incubo prime times — still I can’t deny that sometimes I feel that the chef in a trouble with all those orders is just like me.
As for a restaurant, I think that the 3 biggest problems for a studio can be:
1 — Disorganisation -> Disorganisation
2 — Too large yet not coherent menu -> A portfolio (or an offer) with too many things without a clear direction — I won’t say that a studio has to showcase just its most known service (I’m a big fan of multidisciplinarity — I think it boosts creativity and quality), but it’s important to communicate in every project the unique style of the studio (just like we love to eat Veg Japanese when we look for a Veg Japanese restaurant — I actually never felt in love with Veg Japanese kitchen, but this is another story). Plus, maybe some specialties are not showed in the main menu/portfolio: for instance, we’re pretty good at designing mobile apps but we don’t have anything on our portfolio (but, don’t worry — we’re currently working on our website and we’re going to have a dedicated section for them ;) )
3 — Incredibly long waiting times -> Incredibly long waiting times (in email replies, feedback implementation or production) — we’re already pretty organised with this, but right today a studio assistant is joining our team to provide even faster response time.
To acquire more self consciousness about our strengths and weaknesses in comparison to a kitsch suburban restaurant that becomes a little gem with a sophisticated menu , I’ll watch with the team an episode of Cucine da Incubo on my next Creative Talk (editor’s note: every week one member of our team talks about a fav subject not related to our paid projects and bakes something for breakfast — berries cheesecake this time).
If you’re running a small company, I suggest you to watch an episode too and see if your current workplace is a messy dive or a well-organised hype bistrot: or, above all, how Antonino Cannavacciuolo’s suggestions on keeping the kitchen perfectly clean can be useful for your desk as well.
Now, here a short list of things that a well working restaurant does and a studio should aim to do:
1- Have a great and balanced menu, from starters to desserts — that means maintain a good quality in every single step of a process (for example for us, making a video: from script to sound design) or in every single service of your offer.
2- Work in a clean kitchen / workspace and daily organise and rearrange tasks, notes and sets. Share information: everyone should know were forks or useful vectors are.
3- Have fair yet profitable prices. Having 2 prices levels for lunch (less choice, but faster and cheaper-> like lean startups need) and for dinner (more sophisticated, costly and customised) can be an option.
4-Be inspired by the market: have a clear direction of what kind of dishes your restaurant offers but change and adapt them frequently, in function of the season/trends and your acquired skills.
5-Be realistic with time, people are waiting for your meals: one of the most frustrating things in life is waiting hours for a waiter taking your order, hours for having your beverages and hours for receiving finally your dish. But, even waiting for the bill can be upsetting or maybe seeing that the table next to you has been served way faster than yours (and you’re going to pay the same price). Don’t put on your menu highly elaborated dishes if you’re not able to deliver them in a reasonable time — or better try to have all the ingredients already peeled, cut, smashed to drop off time while cooking, so you’ll be able to provide high standard cuisine in fair waiting time.
6-Be always positive and propositive with the team and with the clients. Do not complain about everything: this stresses your colleagues and it’s perceived by clients.
7-Offer some free small stuff that help cutting the waiting time (like an offered amuse-bouche before the ordered dishes arrive on the table) or to keep a good memory of the experience (like a small chocolate with the coffee). Ask for a feedback before your clients leave: if you ask if everything was fine and your clients says just “Fine” probably you’re service hasn’t been good enough. If they add any positive additional comments, instead, you probably cooked some great-to-unforgettable plates.
I always liked to test my team in a restaurant environment set, because you can experience in a very short time a lot of dynamics that we face everyday in a more extended timeframe. Plus, it’s going to be probably tiring and fun.
To show ourselves that, as a studio, we’re as good as a great restaurant, we’re going to directly try the experience. We’re not going to open a restaurant, but we’re going to host in our a studio — thanks to Gnammo, a website that lets people organise a dinner party and be paid for it — a dinner or a brunch with 20 real clients. The event is going to happen at the end of March (editor’s note: let’s say September :p) and, of course, you’re invited.
Creative talk by
Ilenia Notarangelo | Creative Director @ ILLO
