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Does more effort equal more sales?

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When I asked our kitchen customers about their biggest mistake, Jimi Wall, co-owner of Whoa Nelly! a human grade dog food business working out of our kitchens, came forward with his:

“I fell in the trap of trying way to hard to make the business a success. It’s easy to think more effort = more sales, but it totally doesn’t work that way. So I’d be working on the business all the time, developing the website, marketing, social media, promo events etc. And when I wasn’t working I’d feel super guilty about not trying hard enough. Then we started at the markets and it was a 7 day week for a while. Definitely no fun and a terrible way to be productive. I learnt that you can do more in 5 days than you can in 7. I found the key is to have clearly defined goals for every task, to do each action consciously, and keep tabs on how long they take. And if I feel guilty now I remember that weekends make the week way more productive. Much happier now!”

I still have trouble NOT working 7 days. Sometimes it’s because I may have worked all week, but there’s something really exciting happening here on the weekend so why wouldn’t I be around for that as well?!

A lot of the time it’s because we’re starting something new that needs its hand held while it finds its feet. A few months back it was our bar food menu, last month it was filter coffee, last weekend it was a 2 cubic meter pile of soil for our new gardens that needed shovelling, and next month it will be our espresso beginnings. Wandering Cooks is nearly 4 years old now, but often it feels like we’re still starting up every single day.

But at other not-so-healthy times, I work 7 days because being in a business is like standing under a waterfall of endless tasks and it feels safer to keep churning through them than to risk drowning under the onslaught. How do you stop to rest when there’s always a torrent of work pending?

Jimi reminds me that having a system for time management can help hold the guilt of ‘not working’ at bay long enough to step out of the flow, take a rest and enjoy something ‘not work’ for a while. David Allen’s Getting Things Done and the time management tool based on his philosophy, Omnifocus, have been incredible support tools for me. They’ve taught me to take time to plan my day by making ‘next physical actions’ out of the waterfall of work. Now I just have to remember to actually USE these tools before the overwhelm kicks in and I’m being drowned by my inbox again.

 

 

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Pivot for the lovers, not for the haters

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Brett Ledger, owner of Megabake, is a legend. He’s quiet, respectful and meticulous. He speaks with care and consideration whenever he’s in the mood for a chat (and I often hope he is). And he leads the way when it comes to products perfectly tailored to a niche market. To his athlete customers needing an energy boost while they’re still in the midst, his bars are a direct line to the source. Of course they are- there’s not one ingredient in those bars, one intention, that hasn’t been thought through in terms of quality and benefit. If I had to nominate one person with the biggest artisan heart, it would be Brett.

So when he told us his biggest mistake while starting out, we listened:

“For far too long I tried to address all the negative criticisms of my products and methods. This is just not constructive. In many cases, negative feedback will have come from someone who just hasn’t connected with your brand and is just never going to be an ongoing customer, so why manage and pivot your business in an attempt to win their favour? Sure, take on the criticism and apply learnings if there are any, but put your time into continuing to deliver for the lovers of what you do, leveraging off what you do well, and enhancing what you deliver for them. They are the people who keep coming back and paying for your products, they already believe in your brand, they spread the word for how good your products are, they are where to spend your time. You need to back yourself, your products and your service and know what is good about them, and who your target market is. Then you can screen the feedback for relevance.

A difficulty is that we often don’t receive the positive feedback in the same direct form as negative feedback, so even small amounts of negative feedback seem to stand out. Maybe one week you sold 500 energy bars, but one person came back to you and said that they wouldn’t keep using your energy bars because they were a bit too big to eat all at once. Do you lose some sleep and start planning a new product line with bite size pieces? (I did). No way – you just received one minor piece of negative feedback and 499 pieces of positive feedback. You just sold 500 energy bars, 499 people are in energy bar heaven right now, and that there is fabulous.”

Photo by Nigel Lewis – thanks Nigel!

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Dumb is only a stage. Wallow, and then begin.

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Some call it The Dunning Kruger Effect: People currently inept at something think it will be easy to do. They have unbridled confidence.

How hard can it be? It’ll be fantastic (I WILL BE FANTASTIC!)

I’ll learn the ukulele…

I’ll leave my secure job and start a farm…

I love making cookies so I’ll make a business out of it…

Charles Darwin described it like this:

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.

In other words, you’ve never done it before so you have much more faith in your abilities than if you actually HAD any abilities.

Is this ‘confidence overload’ an embarrassment to be quickly quashed in yourself?

I say no.

If you did quash it, you might not start anything difficult or risky.

You might become one of those ‘naysayers’…

“Oh no, you can’t do that. Oh no, I’ve seen people try that and it doesn’t work. Oh no I reckon you’d be crazy to do that…”

God I hate a naysayer truly I do.

I say: being ignorant is a stage to be embraced, to wallow in… before launching into reality.

Because if you did know how difficult it truly is to become confident in a new set of skills (playing the ukulele, farming for a living, making cookies into money) you might give up before you begin.

Being dumb first is a perfectly legitimate way to approach entrepreneurship. I see it all the time. I was dumb for sure.

But it’s not enough. It might get us into business, but what gets us through to the other side?

Determination. Resilience. Vigour. Tempered confidence over time. Experience. Trying and failing and trying again. Meeting great people who were dumb once too and made it to ‘smarter’. Asking for help. Skilling up beyond the pain threshold.

Dumb is only a stage. Wallow, and then keep going.

The post Dumb is only a stage. Wallow, and then begin. appeared first on Wandering Cooks.

Don’t do anything at all

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When things aren’t working in business our first urge is often to change things fast: drop a product, stop a market, change a shift – something dramatic to create an equally dramatic relief in the gut of the business owner.

How do we decide on what this change should be? Usually we respond to short term data. The last two weeks have been completely crap. That product hasn’t been selling. It’s the menu. It’s my staff. It’s the lighting.

Responding to short term data with long term dread is an understandable tendency when things look like free falling into disaster.

But it’s hard to go back and make sense of data that doesn’t really exist; you’re only just noticing things are going wrong, but before that, you weren’t ‘noticing’ at all. You’re focussed on the obvious symptoms, not the underlying patterns.

So perhaps one of the most productive things to do in your business when things go off track is to not do anything differently at all, but to do this ‘not doing’ with all your attention. Focus in on the details with an inquisitive mind and a measuring tape, and suspend action until you’ve reached down into the pit of your anxiety and pulled out the poison, not the fear.

The results may surprise you – you might see a less dramatic, more nuanced approach to the pivot than seemed possible from the outset, one that gets your business back on track with less upheaval and more core strength.

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Snubbing the Supermarkets

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So I was in a fair food panel last week and in front of 100 people I cried. Not tears running down the face silent crying but hard to get through to the end of the sentence sobbing.

I cried because I was overwhelmed and running a business that’s trying to be fair is harder than I often allow myself to feel. Most of the time I feel full of hope and enthusiasm, particularly when the hard bits have had a good sleep and haven’t just worked a 12 hour day. Not so this night.

It started off ok. I just felt impassioned. I was asked to speak to the question, ‘what does fair food mean to you?’ so I started by talking about what’s unfair.

For me, ‘unfair’ is corporations stealing artisan language for their marketing purposes. Unfair means not being able to stay small and earn a living. Unfair is trying to be an independent business when you have to compete with Australia’s love of the supermarket.

One of our food makers asked a question about how she can keep going and be an ethical business when she’s working a second job just to keep her food business alive. It was while contemplating her question and waiting my turn to respond that the crying started.

I knew it would happen but there was no way out. Dismissing her question and talking about something else definitely wouldn’t have been ‘fair’. As tears welled in my heart, I play out what I wanted to say in my head: how hard it’s been for us and how important it is for businesses to admit this aloud in front of rooms of people so that others working just as hard don’t feel alone. Because it is working and it is worthwhile even though it’s also fucking hard. Staying focussed on the ethical part of Wandering Cooks is what kept us alive when everything else was breaking. It was our generator when the engines were failing.

Fair for us is a new culture that isn’t built on labels that can be co-opted by mega business or allow consumers to stay mindless. Fair has to be created through a web of connections too complicated for corporations to follow. It relies on self-responsibility and questioning by everyone involved. More work, more options, less hiding, more rich involvement in the food system. All fuelled by conversations and transparency.

This is why we created The Charter, which is designed to help food businesses work towards a fair food system. And it’s why we’ve now created a support group for consumers ready to turn their backs on the supermarkets and start truly supporting the kinds of businesses we all love to love on Instagram. See here for more details about how to get involved with us ‘Snubbers’ at our first event, planned for December 6th.

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How hard core is too hard core?

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After my outburst at the fair food panel and then our supermarket snubbing of last week, I’m feeling pretty good about standing strong for what I believe in. Not that there aren’t a few wary onlookers saying things like:

Careful not to get too ‘out there’ Ange.

Maybe you should write about something more positive this week?

Are you sure you want to get Coles & Woolies off side? Maybe don’t mention them by name.

All concerns from loved ones and friends- people who’s opinions I greatly respect. Then there are the comments from strangers:

You have chosen your path in life so don’t blame the supermarkets if your business model is not successful.

How dare you make me feel guilty for shopping at a supermarket!

Plus all the people not saying anything to me directly (I’m sure there’s plenty of them).

But the decision to organise customers to snub the supermarkets feels so incredibly right, I really don’t mind that it concerns (even angers) others. It feels right to me and right to the 400+ people already interested in our first event planned for the Snubbers on the 6th December.

So the leap feels worth it now. post leap. People may be shaking their heads with concern for my knees, but I stuck the landing. As Brett from Megabake experienced, it’s easy to place too much credence in the naysayers and forget the other 95% who are actually applauding.

Looking back at it, this leap was possible because I’d been planning on it internally, wanting it, regretting not having made it, for a very long time. And heck,in the end my emotions made the decision for me so it was too late not to leap.

But what about when you’re premeditating a leap into ‘hardcore’? You haven’t realised your idea yet and you don’t feel like an expert and everyone else does or is in their own ways? They seem to know what they’re talking about and have been there and they’re successful and they’re looking at you with their supportive face saying…

…are you sure you wanna do that?

How do you decide whether to be the black sheep, risk ridicule, and fracturing your knee caps, to do something potentially crazy hardcore and untested?

In my world, right now, I’ve got another leap brewing. Our new coffee venture (finally). Incredible specialty coffee from Sundays Coffee happening from our garden car park corner from this weekend. The hardcore bit: I really really really want to start off on the right foot and one thing I’ve been saying to myself and others from the very beginning has been- no disposable takeaway coffee cups at all! Just don’t offer them as an option! Have keep cups, have a mug exchange, have beautiful handmade local ceramic cups that encourage people to sit in but don’t do disposables! And now I’m feeling nervous.

Am I shooting my new business in the foot before it even begins?

You will completely lose the early construction trade.

It’s brave, it’s great, but I wouldn’t want to be the barista having to tell people we don’t have takeaway cups.

Well done. We couldn’t do it, but you might be able to.

If you start with a hardcore leap, can you ever walk it back? Is it better to just start and then have to disappoint customers who have grown to expect certain things than to start with customers who are fewer in number but also have a hardcore heart?

I don’t know. It just reminds me that business is full of really difficult questions that have no straightforward answers. I want someone to see into my future and tell me I won’t regret the leap. And no one ever can.

The post How hard core is too hard core? appeared first on Wandering Cooks.

Projections are fun

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At the end of each month, I enjoy reducing the weeks’ happenings to a set of numbers.

Honestly. Mostly. I do!

Particularly if they’re robust digits, maybe more rotund than I expected them to be last time I sat down to my beloved spreadsheet. I get to feed them to next month’s numbers and the ones after that and the whole exercise feels like anticipating a really good meal.

But sometimes, I have to do projections that head WAY out into the ether – past next year, and the year after – towards future projects and possibilities rather than what’s immediate and real.

This kind of number play comes with other feelings.

We all have autobiographies told through the language of money. They’re as contextual as any family history, and their resonance shapes our financial esteem.

If I play too far into the future, murmurings fill the cells of my sheet, taunting me…

‘you don’t know what it means to work hard’, ‘you’ve got caviar taste’, ‘you’ll never make what you need’, ‘you’re a dreamer’, ‘you’ve always got a fall back’, ‘you’re an idealist’, ‘you made a foolish decision’, ‘you must be brave (as in you must be dumb)’…

When I’m playing in the present and the figures are plump, I don’t hear these voices at all. I hear mine. And it’s saying, fuck youse all, I’m on a learning curve.

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When empathy takes a sideline

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I was furious. I could feel my skin practically peeling off with it. Normally, when I’m this angry about something, I quickly see it as a symptom for something else: indignation hiding tiredness, rage hiding grief… I see the one behind the other and then I just FEEL the anger into submission.

Not this time. This email dropped a time sucking disappointment package right into my lap and I was MAD about it.

Sure, there were many things I could have gleaned from this email. I could have seen anxiety, fatigue and inexperience. I could have seen a delicate mind masquerading behind its direct tone. I could have even seen respect and thanks. If I’d been less tired myself. If I’d been looking forward to a break from everything being hard all the time a little less. If I’d felt more secure in what we’ve managed to achieve than I did right then.

From this not very generous place, I couldn’t see Wandering Cooks as others so often see it. I couldn’t see how the fun, bold, growing place we present to the world might seem invincible. I could only see its other side. That Wandering Cooks relies on the businesses that work in it as much as the public that comes to it. That Cooks is only as great as the community we create. And from this place, I could only see what this email didn’t contain. Not one apology. Not one. For stuffing us round.

That was the flint that created the spark… and so I did what I regret having done. I wrote back my hurt…

“I’m overwhelmed with this news. It’s really left us in the lurch and I’m struggling to get over the fact that you’ve managed to deliver this information without even one acknowledgement or apology for this…”

And unsurprisingly, received an equal dose back:

“I was shocked by what you decided to focus on in your response. As an incubator of small evolving businesses, I was shocked to see how much accountability you put on my single business for the broader performance of Wandering Cooks.”

Did I do that? Am I doing this? Yes I suppose I did and am. And that’s when I felt it. The exhaustion of having to hold all this responsibility up in the air. And the honour. I was ungenerous, and now I am the one that is sorry. That we struggle like maniacs to stay afloat doesn’t mean I shouldn’t take responsibility for the decisions that brought me to this place. It’s a place where someone can write to me and let me down without even knowing that’s what they’re doing. Wasn’t that the point, Ange? To make a business that can take away enough risk that others can create and then change their minds without losing everything?

Yes, it was. And it takes a village to build a business like ours. But it also takes an owner. I’ll own it then.

The post When empathy takes a sideline appeared first on Wandering Cooks.


A reason to eat animal products, and a list of ethical animal farmers for Brisbane

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Veganism (or plant-based eating) is a burgeoning movement. At least 60% of our employees at Wandering Cooks are vegan. Many of our food makers are also vegan or are making ever more plant-based menus, on our and our customers urging.

With this growing insurgence of vegans surrounding our warehouse, I sometimes find myself questioning my meat eating motives.

Do I keep eating meat because I hate being ‘on trend’? That’s definitely not a good reason to eat animals so lets scrap that (even though it’s partly true). Is it because I love eating meat? Well I do, but not always, and we’ll come to that. And on top of loving the plentitude of textures and flavours in my diet that animals play a part in, the idea of eliminating whole skill profiles from my cooking repertoire is disturbing. But then, there are so many other skills I would learn if I no longer ate animal products, so that’s not the greatest reason either.

None of these are the real reason I keep eating meat, and serving it to my family and customers.

Underneath lies something else… a reason I think everyone should embrace. I say ‘should’ with a cringe because I hate being preachy, but I say it because I’d hope even vegans could embrace this one. I eat meat because I have profound respect for farmers that love their animals well, and embrace a practice of regeneration through farming with them.

I can’t bear not supporting them, not celebrating them for their resilience, their strength of character, care and ethics. To stop supporting these farmers, to me, would be tantamount to abandoning their stories and throwing them into the dark cavernous void where most of the world farms. Where the world’s heart should be is darkness because of this place.

At Wandering Cooks, we serve certain farmers products because for us, these farmers hold the darkness back from completely taking over our humanity. They embody the exact force which most vegans are revolting against. Without these farmers, everything kind and thoughtful about us would fall away into the void. I truly believe this. So even if you don’t eat animal products, please put aside for at least a moment, the arguments about whether or not we should eat animals at all, and help us fight industrial animal farming by supporting farmers whose practices are entirely other to it.

Below are some of who we’ve gathered for your support. A very incomplete list to be sure. To be questioned perhaps. But we need to start and this is it.

Most of below are retail outlets or online stores, not wholesale sources, but perhaps some of these sources do wholesale and don’t always declare it publicly. If anyone has more info to offer us, we’d love to hear from you. And of course, send any leads on more individual farmers to mention that are doing an excellent job as well as where to find them. Plus more distributors that specialise in sourcing carefully. We’d very much appreciate your help with this.

Sustainable Table is a great reference website to help you understand what you are looking for.
Meats – retail sellers
Here are a few organic and/or ethical butchers/grocers/online stores you can ask if they do wholesale or whole or 1/2 beast deals on pasture-reared (grass fed) meats for you, and what they specialise in. They don’t all advertise themselves as wholesale specifically, but they might do it for larger buyers. You can ask them.
1. Sherwood Road Organics – Lamb, Chicken (these guys are farmers and will sell whole animals for cheaper prices.)
2. Allsop Organic Butcher – Beef, Lamb (more affordable – also sourcing direct from a farm we think, but we need more information on this one)
3. Meat At Billies – Lamb, Pork, Beef, Poultry (not all of Billy’s products are pasture-reared, or to the same extent, but look for Eggcettera Pork, Long Paddock Lamb, 9Dorf Poultry & Eggcettera Eggs in particular)
4. Echovalley – Pork, Beef & Eggs
5. 9Dorf Farms – Beef (online), Poultry (Meat at Billies), Fish (not sure where to source this from yet?)
Meats (wholesale focussed with some retail)
*6. Handsourced – all animals, including the above plus Sommerlad Chicken, the ultimate in chicken and more like game than what we are used to as chicken meat in AustraliaRun by Shirley Harring, she is our absolute pick of the bunch when it comes to sourcing animal products. We are thankful every day for her existence.
Eggs
Echo Valley or Bottom Hill Organics (both use Joel Salatin’s principles of intensive grazing, I think, but would love to know more).
Milk/Yoghurt
Barambah is a great source for your Milk and Yoghurt Products as they are local, careful farmers who are among a small number who actual announce their strategy for looking after bobby calves on their website. Is their a better one out there? You tell me. You can source them through Foodconnect wholesale and retail.
Butter/Ghee
Suggestions, please?
So here is our start. There is more, and we’ll add all this material as well as links to more details about the farmers and their animals when we have the time. But please do see this as an opportunity to help us develop this list into one we can all be proud to call our own – one we can ask questions to and get the answers we need in order to eat animal products well in this city.

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Hitting Pause

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I was writing my first post of 2018 like I walk into most days around here – straight into the middle of it. Plans disintegrate as I’m approached from all corners with conversations, dilemmas and spot fires. I love it when I’m ready for it. There’s no room, no distance, just impact – the nitty gritty of the day bouncing me round with all its shoulders and hips and I’m just there, pinballing around happily.

Which is why this blog post was looking to be about something nitty gritty.

Then a little voice in me stopped bouncing around long enough to ask…

Ange, does this really set the right tempo for the year?

There’s a reason that the abstract turning over of the year is a time for recalibration. Every part of it is set up, symbolically, like the ending of a race. Everyone’s busier, shopping more, spending more, celebrating more. The world goes into full speed trying to end the year in an explosion… so it seems right to be knocked into the unconscious for awhile. It’s ok to STOP when you’ve been SLAMMED. In the holidays, we gather our energy back up into our bodies and carry ourselves in a semi respectable bundle toward the new year’s challenges and commitments.

Except for many people who own a hospitality business, where the explosion of December is real and the pause of the holidays is symbolic. December zooms past  with bigger numbers than normal but dreaded January is in sight on the other side of it all – the month when all these ‘semi respectable bundles’ return from holidays with resolutions not to drink, not to spend, not to eat out so much…

Yet symbolically pause we do, and I did. I stopped long enough to eat too much, drink too much, camp, complete a jigsaw puzzle and throw out some junk while my mind raced in a million directions about January and beyond. But then, finally, after about 10 days in,  the symbolic pause started to feel real. I created just enough space in myself to remember that life does have other moves to make. That the unending dance of worry and excitement with business is just one part of a richer life.

Then, I was back, and hard as I tried, the pinballing took hold. Sitting down to write a post for the first time this year, I was suddenly immersed like I’d never left, and that’s what I was going to do to you – throw you into the middle of my overwhelm with some nitty gritty dilemma.

Luckily I’ve caught myself. That dilemma can wait.

This week, I will force myself to stay paused, and to look forward and backward at once. I have so much to be thankful for in this beautiful business, and so much to be wary of in myself. Customers that are becoming friends, staff that are becoming family, and all the love, challenge and sanctuary that this environment brings also reminds me that if I let myself just pinball, I’ll lose the pause, and that will effect everyone. If I want to be here for all of this year, not in a cloud of overwhelm, but really here, I need to keep a bit of distance alive. Feel free to join me for a week, figuring out how. And maybe next week, instead of dilemmas, I’ll have a strategy or two to share.

Contracts vs handshakes

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To my knowledge, there’s no contractual obligation committing us to any additional recurring bookings with you. So I don’t expect to see any further invoices after this week.
I’m far from the perfect business operator and here’s evidence. I’m lazy when it comes to signatures on paper.
The fact that you’re further shirking your responsibilities by not following through on your 4 weeks commitment, agreed to verbally if not by written contract, is a sad ending.
If I’d put systems in place, if I’d accounted for the worst scenarios and spelled them all out in writing, if I’d got them to sign a piece of paper saying they’d behave a certain way OR ELSE, then I would have something more than ‘a sad ending’ as retort.

I started abandoning contracts and signatures around the time when creating the words and procedures to have them started costing me more than I had money to spend.

And yeah, perhaps philosophically I’m also somewhat irritated by their existence. Why? Because they’re not an agreement for two people to meet as equal, responsible people to discuss things in the light of tomorrow; they’re a record of the past (which has already disappeared) and a symbol of distrust:

This contract acknowledges that we don’t trust each other to be respectful and reasonable about all the things we’ve just agreed to face to face. Please sign here if you agree.

Practically, as a business that keeps changing and developing and finding its feet as its losing its shoes, the rules never stick around long enough to make sense, and I dream of a future full of customers and staff behaving like… reliable friends.

I know I sound like a fruit loop. Let me continue.

I often don’t know what our business really needs from its people until we let each other down.

And in my heart I want to believe people WILL do what they agree to do if they can. And if they can’t, they’ll have a good reason for it and I’ll think it’s a good reason, too. I’d always prefer to let a customer off the hook if they never planned on being on it in the first place. When they’re truly sorry to have to break a commitment we’ve made together, and I can say, that’s ok.

I’m not saying this lack-of-contract-vigilance isn’t a problem I want to change (although I do seem a little attached to the romance of the alternative). And yes, we are getting our contracts sorted right now (as I write) so don’t panic too much my dear parents! (I can feel the furrowed brows from here). Not giving them contracts does, on occasion, wake me up at 3am with cold sweats. Hopefully this will cease with our increased paper trail.

And what will we gain? Imperfect contracts for sure. And gratefulness that the worst hasn’t happen and there’s still time to put systems in place before a real shit storm hits.

The snubbers of guilt

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How dare you make me feel guilty when I’m doing my best?*

Well for one, how do I make you feel anything? If you’re feeling guilty, it’s probably best to own it first up. And then, rather than seeing this feeling as a bad thing, something that I’ve done to ruin your day, maybe you could use it to respond in ways that you thought were beyond you.

Levinas sees guilt as a key emotion to link us to our next actions. To help us remember that our place in the sun, our warmth, our full stomach comes as an immense privilege. So much of our behaviour is oriented toward living a guilt free life. But what if a guilt free life isn’t possible? How do we learn to live with the emotion without becoming defensive against it?

Armouring ourselves with justifications for not feeling guilty is just too damn boring. I suggest using the feeling as propulsion into a life worth living.

Maybe instead of blaming, come along to an event that turns guilt towards action: our next Snubbers event for instance.

*to explain a tad – I was ‘making this person feel guilty’ because I was suggesting an alternative form of ingredient sourcing than she was currently pursuing, but the context of her question doesn’t really matter too much I hope… even if it has given me a chance to push an event I feel proud to be a part of!

Consistency, mediocrity, and multiple venues

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What does it take to make money in hospitality?

I asked this question of a friend of mine, a veteran of the restaurant industry. He said:

Multiple venues. And then consistent mediocrity.

Consistency is clearly a must for a multiple venue owner, allowing them to double down on their efforts with more efficiency. But does consistency really have to lead to mediocrity?

Hold this question in the air as I recall one trend that can drive a person to multiply:

We all know the rules I think: use a great designer to make a stylish space that you can’t really afford, but it’s ok because you did a great job at your last place. This fit out will be subsidised by a developer who sees you as the perfect colour to their next high rise and they’ll recoup the capital costs in elevated rent down the track. Don’t worry, it’s all bound to be successful, because it was last time (was it?), and as long as you have a marketing team to keep the sex appeal flowing you’ll be right… because you were last time (weren’t you?). Or you almost were (who needs a living wage when you’ve managed to balance the books!) This next venture will bring everything into line. And yes! the doors open to shiny new customers who get a shiny new thing.

But as so many in hospitality have experienced, there’s a honeymoon period for a new place. Shiny new customers do like shiny new things, but your new venture is only shiny for so long. The first wave will move on to the next thing and whoever remains will need to build into a returning growing customer base. Not so easy if you’re resting back on mediocrity.

So there’s an argument against mediocrity! Or is there…

What happens after the honeymoon depends in part on the owner’s level of experience and in part on how many other places they already own…

1. it’s this place or nothing (small time operator)

The new restaurant’s early climb into popularity turns into a long hard slog to keep going (the ‘dip’ as Seth Godin calls it) that will either drive the business owner into early bankruptcy or carve them into heroes as they lean into the pain and drive their business towards something beautiful…

or,

2. I can quit and consolidate if I want to (restaurant group)

The multiple business owner finds it easier to ride through the difficulties because they’ve been through it before. Plus, they’ve got buffers to the problems in the form of other restaurants that can pick up the slack. And they may even have their next shiny new thing lined up in the stalls; another place, a slightly different theme, an edge, a style, a recruitment team.

I imagine there’s something compelling about having lots of restaurants and getting to start again and again… a respite in the multiplication of shiny new things.

So, I wonder, if a business owner has just one location, which is just making enough money to cover itself, and they start another that does the same, some operational costs are saved in the process of multiplication (some staffing here, some admin costs there)… when one’s slow on weekends, the other’s busy and vice versa… is this how profits finally start to flow? and then finally, a real income? for the business owner?

This is me on a rant and then my friend chimes in again –  like I said, consistent mediocrity: cutting food costs by sourcing less carefully, replicating and creating a cookie cutter approach so that operational costs are saved… paying minimums and even lower… using fake plants instead of ones that actually require water… no one will notice… that kind of thing.

My friend heads off down the lane but my questions persist…

Really? is this really the only way?

Isn’t it possible to have scale in a food business without drifting towards some gravitational centre of mediocrity? What does it take to keep the spirit up? To keep business pointing toward the most beautiful place it can be? All the small acts and decisions that aiming for ‘the best’ require of a small business owner are ever changing. How does her mind split over more than one physical location so that each place has as much investment in success as the other? Economies of scale can kick mediocrity into the future for sure, but can they just as easily kick beautiful business towards really good food, great jobs and an even better city?

And yet another part of me wonders… what kind of strength is required of an owner to NOT multiply… to place all their eggs in one basket and make it the most beautiful, most well feathered container it can be. The only basket. Strength, bravery… or lunacy?

Cleaning Out Dead Corners

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In business, the il y a is everywhere. It accumulates in unattended spaces, anywhere we allow the life force of business to drift away.

There is. Indifference. No relational leftovers.

I would call the il y a, dead corners.

At our warehouse, dead corners collect empty styrofoam boxes, stealthy stashes of our kitchen customers’ stuff and electrical cords too entangled to be sought out for power.

In our work computers, dead corners collect unlabelled images, broken file links, and outdated spreadsheets.

In our work relationships, dead corners manifest through triangular conversations. If we could hear them for what they are, they would go something like…

I’m going to tell you my grievance instead of telling that other person my grievance… even though that other person is the person who really needs to hear it. But if I tell you instead of her then YOU might sort it out for me, which will make you feel valuable, and a bitch session will certainly make me feel better without the discomfort of a truly brave conversation.

In any business, there are endless physical, virtual and emotional corners for all this stuff to accumulate, if we let it. And in their acute darkness, the il y a gradually frays the edges of our enthusiasm, submerges our passions, and creates disorder for our work dynamics.

Fatigue, anxiety and overwhelm are the bountiful fruits of the il y a.

So let’s have a week like I’ve just had, and many more to come. Let’s sweep away the deadness. Let’s reclaim space for the living, breathing work of our businesses.

There’s no quick end to all dead corners. They need your time, your attention. This one might need a glass of wine and space enough to stand back and ponder every discarded object you find within. But this one, it just needs a brutal hand and an enormous bin. Depends on how acutely the darkness has accumulated. It took me all night to remove the old pots full of dead herbs and dried out soil from our carpark, but my garden feels lighter and more lively already.

Don’t stop at the physical stuff (I’m saying this to me as much as you). Set aside a day to archive old files, a week to befriend your time management system (again), and a month to begin all those difficult conversations.

A little warning pre clean out – don’t expect fan fare. No-one might even notice it’s gone, but no one is one person more than the il y a, and I promise, everyone will feel the brightness coming.

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Sometime Maybe

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Sometime (maybe) I will create… a neighbourhood composting program, an edible plant nursery, a shop that’s entirely dedicated to ethically sourced dairy products, a food business training, a writer in residence scheme, a wishing tree, a retail deli and a bottle shop.

But until then, I will focus, not on projects holding all the potential of ideas not yet examined under the light of active business, but on those that will help me grow what’s already here.

It used to be hard for me to distinguish between the two. But as David Allen suggests, there’s no need to lose the dreams entirely. Just place them in a ‘sometime maybe’ folder, and run your fingers passed their possibilities every 6 months or so, to see if their moment has arrived.

Why not let them live side by side with the daily work of growing a business? Well you can, but take care not to be drawn in by their simple solace. The distance between idea and implementation is as vast in reality as it looks on your balance sheet. There’s no easy project. Just keep going and save the rest for a rainy afternoon.

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Your One Thing

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Everyone around us at Wandering Cooks is getting ready to own their own places. Whether it’s still a glint in their knife, money being squirrelled away, or an empty building, people are getting ready.

How many will dare to be a Michelin starred hawker

to look out passed what exists towards horizons still approaching

to be guided by the ONE THING they do so exceptionally well that no one else can do it better

better and more authentically, for longer, with more earnest dedication, day in day out, until they change the landscape of what is considered to be high quality by the world’s most esteemed judges?

Like a stone thrown toward their future- how many will dare to let that one thing ripple out to impact everything else they do?

What’s Wandering Cooks’ ONE THING…

We tend the ground that grows people who dare to do their ONE THING. And we ask them to do it with kindness towards the people, environments and animals behind their products. And then we celebrate them to the eaters and the drinkers who will love them for their bravery.

We can’t forget that. Every day, when I’m tending the garden or she’s polishing a glass or he’s setting up for morning service, this must always be on our minds. Why are we doing this? For us, for you, for growing our passion together….

What is your Michelin starred hawker?

Photo credit: Yong Teck Lim – Good Food Guide.

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How to not wait for your customer

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Deflated in the doorway he wilts, waiting for someone to walk in. He could be busy with possibility, but instead, he is empty with apathy and expectations unmet.  He smiles feebly as you walk passed. Of course, you don’t stop. Why would you, to that face?

He’s not your job. You’re job is to eat something delicious and exactly what you feel like in an environment that is alive. He’s making you feel like your job is to make him custom. He doesn’t see this, of course. He blames the weather, the economic climate, the new restaurant next door. Never his wilt.

Trying something new, he puts a waitress in the doorway in his stead. She smiles somewhat less feebly as you walk passed. Says hello. Asks your already accelerating self if you’d like to see a menu. Disappointment looms again – a grey ghost seeping over the shoulders of her efforts towards the street.

They could both be busy with possibility – with chalking a beautiful new menu board, with shining the windows til they are like diamonds, with podding fresh peas from seats out front. But instead, they’re doubling their drab vibe with misplaced niceties and loaded expectation.

Walking by yet again, you think, do you already owe them something? Of course not, which is why you keep walking passed not walking in, towards places that can be explored without pressure, where you can soak in some of the ambience before you commit to a meal. You don’t care if the place is empty, as long as you can explore the menu without their eyes on you. You may not owe them anything, but you certainly don’t want to be the target of their disappointment.

I, too, have fears that the custom won’t come in. And I actively attempt to make it my problem, not theirs. So, I try to begin my relationship with strangers walking by as accidental encounters. Not with expectations that they will stay, but with a hose in my hand in the front garden, or dirt under my nails repotting some figs. I disarm them with my complete involvement in making my space beautiful enough that someone (not them of course), but someone, would be crazy not to sit down. Clean your windows if you’re anxious. Doesn’t matter if you did it this morning, do it again. Polish cutlery with gusto, redo your signs, but don’t, whatever you do, wait.

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Moving into the clarity of grey

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Some people find comfort in black and white opinions. I find comfort in grey.

Examples?

A while back I admitted that I was bad at contracts. I know I need to make them, sure, but that doesn’t mean I will love them or won’t mourn a little of my haphazard but contract-free zone.

Solidly grey opinion right?

Yes, and I got my fair share of mini-lectures from people who love contracts, suggesting I should be careful not to romanticise a world where the rules aren’t omnipresent.

And then there was my post about ethical omnivores uniting with vegans to fight a common enemy. Not them and us, but good old grey against industrial animal farming. I’m nervous even mentioning it in case I get sent the same amount of vitriol again, not from unthinking meat eaters but the vegans themselves. One even told me I should walk off a bridge.

Why do some try so hard not to wear grey in life, and even more so in business? Grey people say life is complicated, yes. There’s no simple path toward the correct answer, no. Why not move forward anyway, together into the grey?

Intrinsic to so much of business is this kind of complexity: schisms between staffing and revenue, between individual needs and the needs of the business as a whole, between decisions that might limit revenue but follow an ethical line. Grey means understanding both sides of an argument, embracing complex decision making, accepting a collision of ethics, guilt, habit, history, blindness and passion.

Moving forward with grey requires decision making that rests less on clear lines and more on clarity of purpose. If you know why you’re doing what you are doing, then even when the answers aren’t black and white, acknowledging the grey brings power.

It brings power even to the grey in your thoughts, in your mishaps and semi-successes. Sure, you might need them all to actually surface for this to happen, but think of all the grey-ish friends you’ll make.

Let me be clear, your grey friends will not be wish-washy. They will be brave. And the decisions they make aren’t rash, they’re challenging. Grey people will say, bring on the pain and the questions! the salutes and the condemnation. To avoid these is like avoiding a bandaid that needs ripping off.

Go on, rip it off. After the shearing pain, your skin will start to breath.

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Task Masters and Mining for Ideas

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Every week, for a time, I look forward to writing my blog post.

Abstractly.

I watch from the distance of a week’s time and imagine carving it out, easily, like my mind is as giving as smooth clay. Any shape seems possible with imagination as my assistant. From this distance, thoughts are my besties. I have no intention of sitting down to disturb that harmony just yet.

Then Ash says to me, maybe you should write your post earlier in the week so it’s not so much of a rush all the time? On Thursdays maybe? so it has time to sit over the weekend and we can get the newsletter out exactly when we want to on Tuesdays?

Task master strikes again! Everyone needs at least one and I love my several. ‘Being held to account’ is one of the major reasons I’ve managed to dig Wandering Cooks out of the ground. Someone outside of me tapping their watch, waiting on me to dig what I promised them I would dig.

Not carving, digging. From a distance work looks much more glamorous than this. A new project, a new way. Great idea, I think. And then Wednesday turns into Thursday and a million small tasks clog my mind, and finding time to write feels impossible when I’m chasing after it with a trowel. Suddenly, it’s Tuesday morning again, and I’m back in my same position. We have no choice anymore. Me and a blank screen. Dig the fucking hole, Ange.

Looking down at the beginnings of this murky pit, I see the conversation I had with two of my favourite food makers yesterday. They’d asked me to help them reach their goals. I could see in their eyes the draw of the not-yet-there, those projects and potentials sitting at a distance looking easier than the murk of the real they were currently in. So I faced them squarely over the business of their making, and said, dig.

Dig first, into skills you’ve been avoiding. Set up a financial record of where you’ve been and where you’re going. Then, we can talk goals. I wouldn’t let them focus on the horizon, on the ideas that just might work. I was the ultimate task master and it felt… real good.

I knew what I was asking was going to hurt. So many turgid steps to get through before they would rest. Maybe they would never rest. That’s basically what I told them. Is that what you want? This life?

I think they’ll say yes. Because maybe even I, at this distance, seem easy to handle. I won’t be. But we’ll do it anyway, because they can’t imagine doing any other kind of work, and neither can I. Sitting down to the hardest tasks first, listening to my task masters. Becoming an idea miner.

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The game of your business

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There’s really nothing more creative than running a business, if you want it to be this way. But instead, you can run your business like a series of jobs:

Every day, go to your business, do what you planned to do.

And what you planned to do is what you thought your business was yesterday.

So prep food, sell food, talk to people who walk into your shop, or food truck, or restaurant.

Order, clean, pay bills, pay people, lock the door, do it again as planned.

Nothing complicated about that. Until you find yourself going on a road straight to nowhere.

At which point, you can start re-imagining your business as a game. Not a game that is won and finished, like an every day of the week simple card game kind of game (the ‘did I do lots of covers today’ kind of game), but a game that has no end.

The aim of this game is for the game to go on long enough that your employees are well paid and enjoying themselves, that your debts are cleared and that you’re making a proper dent in the universe or the neighbourhood or other lives more generally (including your own).

Long enough that the game becomes an art form.

That’s the complication of business, and what makes it not busy-ness. When it becomes creation: endless, or end-full, depending on how you decide to play it.

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