I'm going to miss it. The Value Menu, Dollar Menu, call it what you will but I will miss it. Now that healthcare reform legislation has passed, I suspect my occasional guilty indulgence at my favorite fast food haunts will now cost me more.
With the ongoing growth of social media as a way to "get the word out" continues to grow, the seedy side always seems to rear its head. For those not familiar, Yelp is a popular online review site which contains word of mouth reviews, mostly of restaurants. The search results for Yelp tend to rank very high, meaning a post by a guest about your restaurant, whether good or bad, will often show up very readily in Google.
So last week I placed another District Manager with a top QSR franchise group client I work with who is acquiring a 40+ unit DMA in the southeast. They asked me to find someone with previous experience 
with their brand who was not currently working elsewhere for the brand. While not an impossible task, it does limit the candidate pool quite a bit!
While it took a few weeks of recruiting, I was able to present several strong candidates. As we moved the process along and the finalists were determined, one candidate stood out as the best choice for my client. Not only did this candidate have the brand experience they were looking for but he also had the strong results and outcomes that my client was looking for.
A job offer was extended by my client through me and the candidate excitedly accepted. Several days later, within minutes of each other, both the candidate and the client called me to thank me for the job I had done for them. The candidate was very pleased that I put him in contact with a growing restaurant franchisee with tremendous career opportunity. The client was happy with the speed and diligence at which I worked to recruit the restaurant leader they needed. He then gave me a job order to find them someone in a larger role for a higher position in the group!
It was a win-win-win situation all the way around. I love my work!
I just read a blog post by Aaron Schoenberger over at The BrainchildGroup about the increased use of Social Networking by restaurants trying to attract more guests through the doors in 2010. Many restaurant brands have successfully fostered a more personal relationship with their customer base by interacting with them through different Social Media mediums. Blogs, Twitter, and YouTube all have enabled restaurant concepts in all segments, from QSR to family casual to fine dining, to engage and entice their following in a way that could not be achieved otherwise.
I read in Forbes today where KFC keeps Colonel Sanders' original 1940 hand-written secret recipe under some high-tech security. To protect their trademark Original Recipe, they built a new home for it in the way of a 770 pound digital safe surrounded by 2 feet of concrete, complete with 24 hour surveillance and motion detectors. It occurred to me that that level of security is warranted because the loss of the exclusive use of it would do KFC irreparable damage.
I love this part of my job! I just placed a fantastic restaurant leader with one of my best clients in Kansas. He's a tremendous people developer and sales driver and my client is growing by 15 new restaurant openings this year.
It's awesome when I get to be a part of matching the right candidate to the right client for a win-win-win situation! Time to ring the bell and do the happy dance!
HeadHunterBrian.com is a restaurant career website created for all leaders in the restaurant industry. As the site's name would infer, I'm an Executive Restaurant Recruiter (read Headhunter) in the restaurant industry that I love.
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As a 23 year veteran of the restaurant industry, coming from primarily an operations background, I strive to provide a perspective and a level of expertise that will enable others in restaurant leadership positions to accelerate their careers in our fine industry. Let me know when I may be of value to you by emailing me at HeadHunterBrian@gmail.com .
Brian Bruce - HeadHunterBrian
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Wednesday, March 24, 2010 at 8:28PM