Good sanitation and… Prepare for perfection…

Good sanitation and … Staying in business

Giving customers diarrhea is just bad business. Just ask Chipoltle (or Taylor Farms who processed the jalapenos thought to be the cause of the recent salmonella outbreak there).

And that outbreak was on the heels of the lettuce born Cyclospora Parasite contamination that resulted in lettuce being recalled from numerous restaurant chains and groceries nationwide.

Sadly those instances had nothing to do with anything that either the groceries or those restaurants did wrong. But in today’s world of Yelp all it takes is one case of the green apple quick trots and that single instance is instantly blown up and even makes the six o’clock news.

We have to look no further that the recent traffic reduction in Chipotle’s stores to see the dramatic economic effect food borne infections have.

There’s not much we can do to help our customers avoid an outside sanitation problem coming through the back door – and becoming their problem. But we can certainly help them avoid self-harm with bad sanitation happening on the other side of that door.

There may be no better message to cement our customer relationships than preaching good sanitation and then delivering both the products and training to accomplish that important goal.

Prepare for perfection… Or maybe just better

Winging it is for rookies. Professionals practice to achieve something close to perfect. The idea that we can “mail it in” when the moment to perform arrives, is simply folly.

That’s certainly the case when it comes to a training presentation to a large group, or especially that “make it or break it” presentation to the selection committee of the buying group you’re courting.

And by practice we mean saying it out loud and preferably to a small audience who will honestly critique your message – and your delivery of it. If that audience isn’t available, then at least do it in front of a mirror.  Finally practice enough so that those notes you’ve written are unnecessary.

If you’ve achieved that level of preparation your mind will be free to focus on details like that all important eye contact and perhaps even more importantly having the mental bandwidth available to assess the impact (or lack of) your message is having in real time. That way if it’s necessary you can make the course corrections to be sure it is!

Next up: Avoiding tone deafness.