The Use of Art of War in your Daily Works

Alt of people might think, what has a book with only 13 chapters and was written thousands of years before be helpful in our daily works. Well like all motivational and self help books, you need to see the big picture. Below are some examples of how the Art of War have helped me in my daily life.

Controllling Anger
Verse 12."There are five dangerous faults which may affect a general. One of it is a hasty temper, which can be provoked by insults. This means holding your anger." Chapter 8: VARIATION IN TACTICS. I always had a quick tongue and an even quicker anger. I used to say what I feel and do things without much thought. That is the why I was most of the time passed over for promotions. Even though I knew the job very well. Now I'm more controlled now.
Another quote from Sun Tzu goes like this. 5. The general, unable to control his irritation, will launch his men to the assault like swarming ants, with the result that one-third of his men are slain, while the town still remains untaken. Such are the disastrous effects of a siege. Chapter 3. ATTACK BY STRATAGEM

Never Underestimate your competition
Verse 11. The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy's not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking, but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable. Chapter 8: VARIATION IN TACTICS
This means never underestimate, always be prepared. We used to be the biggest hotel with the biggest convention room. So naturally we got the bulk of the business in our area. Now there's a new building coming up near us, same amount of rooms and an even larger convention hall. Luckily I followed this Sun Tzu's strategy. Before any news of this hotel coming up, we built our business with the local community. So we might lose some business to them, we will win back our guest if we continue to be friendly and give them an even better product than the new hotel.

Leading by Example
Verse 8  "At the critical moment, the leader of an army acts like one who has climbed up a height and then kicks away the ladder behind him. He carries his men deep into hostile territory before he shows his hand. "  Chapter 11. THE NINE SITUATIONS.
Few days ago, I was watching Battles BC on the History Channel. This time they were showing Caesar's battle with the Gauls. Towards the end of the battle, it looked like Rome was going to lose the campaign. They were attacked from both sides. Then Caesar put on his red cloak and when into battle with reinforcements. Seeing their comander fighting alongside with them with his distinguished red cloak, the Roman army had renewed strength and fought hard. They managed to win the battle. This concept can be used in today's management system. When your area is busy or staff have difficult situation, the staff will be happy to see their manager working alongside them. Not standing around giving orders. I have found that this motivates them to give their best. It also helps when you need to reprimand them for a mistake they have done. The employee will know that you want only for them to improve their performance.
Verse 25 "Regard your soldiers as your children, and they will follow you into the deepest valleys; look upon them as your own beloved sons, and they will stand by you even unto death." Chapter 10. TERRAIN

Pocket Budget App

Some of the self help books that I like to read are books on achieving financial freedom. I like to read and reread books like Richard Clason's " Richest Man in Babylon" and books by Robert Kiyosaki. These are not get rich quick books, but books that teach us how to comtrol expenditure thus obtaining financial freedom. Most of the books teaches that in order to be financial free we need to track our expenses daily. I have been doing that for the past few years. I was shocked when I found out that I was spending unnessarily on things that I could have gotten. You can read one such example here Book Review- Richest Man in Babylon. I normaly use an excel worksheet which I put into my smartphone and keyin my expenditures. But using excel has some limitations. You need to export at the end of each month which can be some work. I came across Pocket Budget from an article in the Star newspaper. Downloaded this app and love it. Pocket Budget is an easy way to manage your finances by tracking of your expenses and incomes. After installing Pocket Budget, you need to put your income either in salary or gift categories. When you have an expense just click on the expense button. Put it in what category. If you want to add some pre set categories, just click add category. Add a description if you want and save. The app automatically calculate your balance. By doing this you know what you have to use until your next salary. This app even generates reports that you can easily view at the end of the month to see where your money went. You can download this app at Google Store just type Pocket Budget.

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Learning through watching Tony Fernandez o AXN Asia

Well this post is not a single inspirational person but an example on the importance of palnning in everything we do. I feel everyone has heard this mantra at a point of their life. The mantra goes like this "If you want to succeed in life, you need to do something you are passionate about". Mine is the Food and Beverage. So much so that my other half says that she is the second wife, my job is my first wife. Thats true. I can't stop working. When I am eating out, I always observe what the wait staff do, how food is presented and so on. Even when we stay in hotels, I like to wake up early and walk around the hotel. My wife always say when we are on holiday why can't I leave my work at home. Even the shows I like to watch are related to the Food and Beverage field. Nowadays after assuming a management position my playlist have increased. I like shows that are related to the management and also marketing field. One such show is the Apprentice reality show with Donald Trump. I not only like to see how they market or complete their projects. You can also get some management and leadership lesson from these type of shows especially from the boss Donald Trump.
Recently AXN started a new Apprentice Series based in Asia. Its on every wednesday and is called of course "Apprentice Asia". The boss here will be Tony Fernandez. Tony Fernandez is really an inspirational guy. From being in the music industry he bought a failing airline for only RM1 (with a heavy debt attached to it and turn it into one of the best low cost airlines. You can read something about him here My Heroes- People who have inspired me. Well lets go back with the opening episode of Apprentice Asia. The teams were divided by gender, each team was given the task of selling fish at a market. The team with the highest profit margin wins the challenge. Should be a simple task for a bunch of professionals but they failed misserable. The ladies team lost about RM100 and the men's team lost RM600.
We will review why the men lost. The main word was STRATEGY. They didn't sit down and plan their strategy. When they arrive at the market they quickly set up stall. They didn't do a market survey, therefore they didn't know whether they were selling higher or lower. They let the buyers who is very savvy with fish prices dictate the price. They didn't do a price list based on a profit margin, therefore they sold at a lower price. One of the participants started calling customers eventhough they were not ready. Even Sun Tzu has something to say about planning, its from the first chapter called "Laying Plans".26. Now the general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple ere the battle is fought. The general who loses a battle makes but few calculations beforehand. Thus do many calculations lead to victory, and few calculations to defeat: how much more no calculation at all! It is by attention to this point that I can foresee who is likely to win or lose.
From this show, you will see the importance of planning especially when doing a menu. Even the simplest task like selling fish needs to carefully planned. In a previous post I have elaborated the steps in creating your menu.



Tony DiCorpo is a coffee roaster, barista trainer and coffee business consultant. He has authored many articles on coffee and the coffee business. Tony has extensive experience in business and collectively more than 20 years experience in sales, business management, entrepreneurship and the coffee business. The website to go to get his business plan is www.tonys-coffee-shop-business-plan.com

Romantic Idea- Making Her Feel Beautiful

Alway tell her she's beautiful in your eyes
Most of of us (men) are guilty of this offence me included. We tend to take our wives or girlfriends for granted. When we were dating, we always say sweet things like how beautiful they are. But after a few years of marriage we forget to do just that. Maybe we are busy working hard to feed the family, nowadays we have more mouths to feed. To continue keepinq the flames of love alive, say beautiful things to her once in a while and you will see the difference. Even Zig Ziglar in his book "See You At The Top" said that when his wife came back from the salon, the food she cooked tasted better that day. But you also need to see the situation to say it. Don't say it after she has been doing a major house cleaning, that she looks a mess. Then you are asking for trouble. Maybe this Valentine's buy her a sexy lingerie. Ask her to wear it and drool over her. Or if you have extra money buy a nice dinner dress and bring her out for dinner. Reserve a table where she can be seen and walk with her holding her hand. Make her feel beautiful and special. Then to make the suprise more better, check in a hotel after dinner without any luggage. Just what you are wearing. I will leave the rest to your imagination. I did this for one of our anniversary and boy was she beeming for a week or so. She still talks about how naughty we were.

An Interesting Article for us hoteliers

Here's a review of a book for those in the hospitality industry and thoae thinking on embarking in this industry

What the Hotel Industry Can Learn From 'Heads in Beds' by Jacob Tomsky.

Restaurant Review- Waranee Thai Restaurant

A Gem in Port Dickson

As I have mentioned in my previous post, its so hard to find good and reasonally priced food outlets in Port Dickson. So finding this Gem of a restaurant was great. A friend book this place as a venue to celebrate a birthday. Waranee is a little restaurant hidden away in Kampung Gelam, Port Dickson. If you are heading from Pantai Cahaya Negeri, look for the junction with the Shell refinery on right. At the junction turn left. Drive straight thats where you will come to a row of shophouses on the right. On the left is a row of double storey houses.The signage looks like most Thai Restaurants in Malaysia. The shop is nothing fancy. But food is great and reasonable. A plate of Thai Fried rice is RM5.00.

As for us, we preordered our dinner. The first course was raw vegetables such as carrots, cucumber, young corn served with a very spicy chili paste. Coming from Melaka we love our food spicy, the first course was heavenly. The chili paste was really really spicy. I am not sure whats inside as the owner said it was a secret recipe. After that was Tom Yam Seafood with some really large prawns. For the main course we had spicy lamb, fish cooked in a lime sauce, deepfried fish with Thai sauce, a vegetable dish and crab and mango salad. My favourite was the fish in lime sauce. I miss that alot after coming back from Koh Samui. For the dessert we had the Pumpkin Custard. Every dish that came out was beautifully decorated and tasty.

As I have worked in Thailand for about a year and half, I can fairly say that the food here is authentic Thai. So if you looking for good Thai food in Port Dickson head over to the at Waranee Thai Restaurant. They are opened for lunch and dinner. And closed on Wednesdays

How to Market your Menu

How to Market your New Menu

So you have created your restaurant menu, now you have to market it. You have to let people out there know about your menu and your chef. You need to create a buzz and you need to keep advertising even though you have been long in the market. You might think that you are already well known but with all the new products flooding the market these days, customers might miss you out. That's why big brands like KFC, McDonalds and other fast food chains spend millions on advertisements yearly. Eventhough people know them. Below are some ways that I use to promote my menu. Hope its of some help.

1. Advertise your menu

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The first and important thing you have to do is to advertise in the mainstream media that you have a new menu.You may need to fork out some money but this will help to create awareness to your restaurant. As mentioned earlier even big restaurants do it.These will include advertisements in newspapers, flyers, banners and brochures. You can also seek help from your staff to help you hand out the flyers around town. My staff was happy to do it for me. If you have a higher budget you can advertise on the radio or tv. Make sure you write something interesting or use an eye catching pictures. Try to go away from the norm, otherwise people will pass it by cause its just another advertisement.

2. Invite the local media to taste your new menu

You can advertise in the newspaper or magazines as mentioned above. You can also go a step further by inviting some reporters to sample your menu. It is always well worth considering inviting the media to your restaurant. To do this you must be really sure that you are ready. You wouldn't want to make a fool of yourself to the people who is going to write about you. You need to put your best foot forward. I suggest you run your menu for one month to work out any hiccups that might occur before calling the press. When you are ready, then only call the press. If you are inviting only a few media people then call up some friends to dine at your place, so the place will look good not like a haunted restaurant.

3. Invite your local bloggers

These days it’s not only the professional food critics that people listen to for advice. Consumers search the internet on information on your place. A recent survey that was done by the hotel I work of how people got to know about our hotel was 45% said that they knew about us from the internet, 40 % was from friends and 4% from the newspaper and magazines. These will show you the power of the internet. Bloggers have their own set of followers and these followers listen to them. Look around at websites of local bloggers. A good way to start is to search for blogs about your competitors, follow them and see what they write. Whether it suits your style. Also note how many folllowers they have. But a word of caution most bloggers write the truth because they have a reputation to uphold to their followers. If your item is not good, don't feature it or you might get some nasty reviews. Once you get a positive review, you can share it with your customers, post it on your site and on your blog and Twitter and Facebook pages.

4. Pictures sell.

In my former hotel where I worked, we created menus with pictures in it. After printing the menus, I used the pictures and created posters of individual food items. Each food item had a catchy tag line like "Sinful Pleasures" for desserts, "What a Hunk of Beef " for beef burgers and "Get Curried Away"for curry dishes. We noticed that customers is more likely to order a dish when he or she sees a picture. So when we needed to clear a slow moving item, we just put a poster of the item. But you need to take mouthwatering shots of your food. Search the net for ideas on mouthwatering images. Follow suit.

5. Upload on your Facebook, Twitter or othe social sites.
Nowadays most business are using the social media like Facebook or Twitter to promote their company or products. If you don't have a Facebook sites its best to create one. Its really easy. You must put important information under the Info tab which includes your restaurant's location, directions, hours of operation and Web address. You can even put your menu in your facebook site. You also need to let your customers know that you have a Facebook site that they can be friends with. This is done by giving out cards with your Facebook address out to everyone. Apart from that you need to also keep your site updated and attractive. Here is when you can get more creative, with the help of the pictures. You can upload the pictures on your site every two days. Do this after you have uploaded your menu. You can feature not just pictures of your dishes, but also the recipe or a video of the chef demostrating how to cook the dish. You can also feature interviews with your customers. Constantly add interesting things, not only trying to sell your product. If you have interesting article on your Facebook page, people will be interested to be friends with.

6.Email
Even though emailing out newsletters or product update is nothing new within the internet world, it is still a great way to build awareness of your new menu to existing and new customers. You won't have to worry about spamming if your customers give you their email address. Normally when someone has given you their email, they are already interested in your place. This gives you a chance to entice them with special offers or highlight to them your new menu. I have wrote in my post "Restaurant Promo Ideas #6- Collect Mailing Address " on ways to get email address from your customers.

7. Create Videos

The use of videos in marketing is still largely underestimated. There is a huge audience on sites like YouTube. Imagine nowadays an aspiring singer can land a huge contract by just a music video on You Tube. But video marketing can also be used as a restaurant marketing tool. You can post your Chef in action, a tutorial on how to set a table or prepare a cocktail. Don't forget to add your link at the bottom. If you video is good and it might go viral and then alot of people will know about your restaurant.

These are some of the ways of promoting your menu. If you located at a busy intersection you can hand out sample of your food for people walking by. Do dropby for more Restaurant Promo Ideas.








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CLASSIC restaurant management suite was put together by Andreas Breitfuss and his team to help those people in the restaurant industry. It is a selection of restaurant management tools that when used in combination can help you streamline your restaurant, café or hotel. These pre-designed forms, templates and spreadsheets save you time to concentrate on other areas of the business. There is beverage costing sheet, restaurant requisition sheets, purchase order forms, blank stock take sheets, stock take spreadsheet, stock take financial analysis spreadsheet, wastage sheets, standard food recipe templates, standard beverage recipe. Beverage engineering spreadsheet, menu placement card, menu advertising elements and sample restaurant menus