How to Build a Training Program That Actually Sticks

Most bar training programs fail. It's not because you have bad material, but it's really because there's no system to make sure that any of it gets learned. Most operators I work with, they have all the training material they need. They just need a better system for delivering it. And that's what we're going to break down today. Welcome to the Bar Business Podcast. I'm your host, Chris Schneider, the bar business coach. And if you're tired of figuring out every bar problem alone, when well join Bar Business Nation, our free Facebook group for bar owners who want better ideas and real conversations. The link's in the show Notes. Today on the Bar Business Podcast, we're talking about why most training programs fail. Where the gaps are, a three phase training architecture to ensure that you eliminate those gaps, how to build product knowledge that actually sells, and an ongoing system to keep everything running. If you're like most bar owners, you have the training materials. Maybe they're good ones, maybe they need some improvement, but you have something, but you're handing them over to someone, not following through on them and then wondering why they're not trained. And quite frankly, it's because you did not develop a system that's actually going to work. Now when we talk about training programs, there are three gaps that I most frequently see when I'm talking with bar owners. The first one is the knowledge gap. You, you have the material, the training docs, the recipe books, the standards, but you have no system to actually ensure people learn it. Handing someone a binder is not training. The second gap is the product gap. New hires learn how to operate the bar, but they have no clue what you sell. You haven't taken the time to actually explain to them, here's what we sell and why. The third thing that I see a lot is an accountability gap. It's an honor system. It's a, hey, go study this, learn this. That's you're responsible for that as part of your job and then it never comes up again. And I don't know about you, but when I was in school, if that's how classes were taught, I would have learned very little because quite frankly, hey, do this. And I'm like, yeah, I can go to the bar and have a drink. I'm gonna go to the bar and have a drink. I'm not gonna do that work. Now here's the good news, folks. Most bars have the training material they need. And most of you probably have more training material than you think you do. By the time you look at all your Checklists, all your policies and procedures, all the materials you've created, all of that should be worked into your training. So when we train, we want to follow a three phase architecture. Essentially, what do we do the first week, what do we do the first month and what do we do forever? In the first week, we want to establish how things actually operate. This is where most people are really good and where they stop their training program. How's the POS work? How do you open, how do you close? What is the sequence of service? What are our standards of conduct, what's our dress code, all of that? It's the minimum stuff that person needs to be functional. And if you're like most parts, you probably are killing this part of it. It's what comes after this that's going to fall apart. So our second phase, in that first month, what do we want to do? Product knowledge. People need to know what they're selling. Start with your highest velocity items, those things that are selling the most. Pull your pmix, look at it and say what is selling? Then train people. Work through everything systematically, really, category by category, so that people can understand what you sell. Do this for food and for cocktails, do it for liquor, do it for wine, do it for beer, do it for everything. And something to keep in mind is all of your key items, right? Not every item you have necessarily, but all the key items, whether we're talking food or beverage, need a story. Doesn't have to be a dramatic one, but you need a story. Where do the ingredients come from? Why was it spirit chosen? Who created the cocktail? What was the inspiration for the cocktail? If it was created in house, that is going to give your server, your bartender, something to talk about. That's going to engage that guest, pull on their heartstrings and endear them to your server or bartender. Now our third phase, our phase that goes on forever, is all about ongoing development, deeper knowledge delivered in small doses over time. Now you can do this in pre shift meetings. I don't generally like to do that because pre shift, you know, is different people every day. For most establishments I like to do a Saturday meeting once a month, have everybody come in and we just talk about something. It works easy. It's high quality training. And if you're doing it while you're closed, no one has to be stuck behind a bar trying to take care of guests while you're trying to do training. And the important thing about this ongoing development, it never ends. It never ends, ever. Never ever. So it's going to help Your employees get better, it's going to train them on what they need to do, and it's going to make sure that they're constantly engaged, that they feel like they're getting value from working for you. So let's talk through some of these in more specifics. The product knowledge system. Now, this is the part where most people fall apart. Now, if you've read my book on menus or if you've heard me talk about menus, this is a podcast episode on menus. I'm a big fan of. You need a physical recipe book for everything in your kitchen. You need a physical recipe book for everything behind your bar. Every house cocktail, every classic. People need to know how you make them. You specifically make them, right? Every bar is different. So how do you make them? It's not just for training, it's for reference. Right? So if that bartender doesn't know, they can pick up that book and look instead of guessing. But it also gives you the bones of how you're going to train during that product period. Weeks two, three and four of that new employee. Do staff tasting. Do staff tastings. There is no way in the world that someone can recommend something they have not tried and have it be believable. And every person that's coming onto your team, they should try everything that's important within the first month or so. All the food, all the cocktails, beer, Right. Do they need to try everything you sell? Ideally, yes, but if you have an extensive menu, no, but they need to be able to talk to it, talk to it in specifics, talk to it in a way that shows the guests, they understand it, that they've actually tried it, and run your team through this so they get their own vocabulary. Right. One of my favorite things to do, especially when you have a new food item or a new cocktail, is to give it to everybody in a pre shift meeting or on one of these Saturday trainings and say, how would you sell those? How would you describe? What do you taste? I'm not giving them the notes, I'm asking them for the notes. And a lot of times type all that up, put it on a little cheat sheet that fits in their server books. Boom. Now they have the best of the information from the group in their pocket at all times that they can refer to and use to talk. A question I like to focus on with bar owners, when we were developing all of this is, what question would absolutely disappoint you if your bartender couldn't answer? If you know what, you'd be embarrassed by what your bartender doesn't know, or if you know you'd be embarrassed by something your bartender didn't know, then that should be part of this, part of the training, right? You need to make sure they have the base knowledge to know exactly what they need to do. And something I also want to throw in while we're talking about this part is standards matter more than you think, right? Every cocktail should be the same every day of the week at your bar. If I order a daiquiri, today should be the same, tomorrow should be the same, next week, it should be the same next year. Obviously, sometimes you change your standards around, but as long as that standard hasn't changed, it should always be the same. Train to the standard, hold the standard. Hold your people accountable for knowing the standard. How are we going to go about building this accountability layer? So we've gotten through week one, we've gotten through week two or month one. We've given folks all this knowledge, but then how do we hold them accountable? Well, we need to do some online training, and online training sounds really scary. There's plenty of programs out there that allow you to make courses, you know, for. For content creators like me. Sometimes folks do courses. I haven't done one yet, but a lot of folks in my position do those also for teachers, right? Especially post Covid, a lot of teaching has gone online. You can use Google, you can use other programs, it does not matter. But this is training that runs in the background and it has quizzes and it has tests. So you can actually put real stuff on there. Pay your staff for their online training time. Right? Now, obviously some of these programs, you can actually check how much time they're in there. Sometimes you can just say, well, this takes this long, so I'm going to just pay you for what I know it takes. Other times you can say, all right, you accomplish these things, I'll give you a bonus. I'll give you that. But the bottom line is if people, if you're expecting people to do an hour of work at home, you need to pay them for that hour. A, that's the law. B, that's just what you should do, right? Take care of your folks, pay them for their training time. When I'm talking about quizzes, yes, especially for doing online training, there needs to be a quiz at the end of every module. It does not have to be hard. It can be open book. The point here isn't to create a grade book and fail and pass people and make people repeat courses because they did not do them. Properly. That's not the point here. Right. The point here is not to be an academic. The point is though, to make sure they understand because understanding breeds retention. If they look it up, that's going to help them retain it more. It's all about information for retention. Now if you do training in your pre shift meetings and this can become really difficult, but I just want to throw this in here real quick. One thing, one item, one talking point, one person chairs, not a whole bunch of training. If you're going to do it in pre shift, one thing A, we don't want our pre shifts to go over about 15 minutes. This is going to be three, four minutes. So you don't have much time to go into much anyway. But one thing now when you're talking to your team, when you're telling them about anything, anything that you're doing in your bar, any requirement you have for them, any cocktail that you have, all of that, you can't just tell them what you have to tell them what and why. Every standard needs a reason, right? You can say we as a standard, ask guests if they want another round when the glass is between a quarter and a third full, that's what. But why? Well, we do that because that increases guest retention, raises check averages and allows servers and bartenders to make better tips. So not just the why for the bar, but also the why as a server or bartender, what does this do for me? How does this make my life better? Tell them how it makes their life better. Tell them how it makes the bar better. But always give why, not just what. Especially with Gen Z, this is super, super important. Now, ideally once a month, you're doing a training session on a Saturday morning. 90 minutes, it's about right start, you know, 90 minutes before your openers start. And I like to alternate between product and supplier training and life skills. So what does that look like? Well, on product days, if we can get a supplier rep to come in, great, let's bring them in. Do a spirits tasting, walk through a new menu section, watch a craft video together. A lot of times you can get your suppliers to come in and do some of this training for you for free because they want your team to know the stories to sell their booze or their food. But make sure that you're covering something that's important to how you want your employees to operate in your business. Then when we're not doing products skills training, we want to be doing life skills training. Now what does that mean? Well, that means call up your bank, see if they'll send somebody in to talk about how to build credit, how to get a mortgage. Maybe have your accountant come in and talk about how to file taxes, what people need to watch out for. Maybe have a career coach come in and talk about how to navigate, negotiate a raise or how to navigate moving out of the hospitality industry. These are problems that everyone on your team is living with. No one's helping them, no one's teaching them, no one's bringing them this advice. Now does that mean some of your people might bolt because you taught them how to get a better job? Well, maybe, but also you've helped them. They're going to remember that. And when other bars and restaurants hear that you're doing that for your team, maybe they want to get involved. If you have the space. It's never bad to let people from your competitors and other folks around come in for these life skills trainings because it's going to make your bar look better, it's going to make your team look cooler, and it's going to get you a stack of applications back in your office so that you never have to hire someone on a whim because someone quit. A lot of times when we're, especially now, the skills training or actual like product and bar skills training, those tend to be mandatory. The life skills, I've never seen a reason to make those mandatory. But guess what? If you give us a free food, maybe give people soda, you know, drinks, non alcoholic, alcoholic, whatever, and knowledge, your folks are going to show up. Especially when you get a reputation for being good. Especially if they see people from other bars and restaurants coming into your store just to hear these talks, they're going to show up. Now the last thing I'm going to give you today while we're talking training is every training program needs an owner. Someone has to be responsible for that. They have to be the ones that determine what's in there. They have to be the ones that adjust it. And that probably should not be you as an owner. Now why do I say that? Well, as an owner, you know the standards, you know what you want people to do, but you're not on the floor. You don't necessarily know the best way to train your team. You can't always speak to the situations they're dealing with. So somebody like an assistant manager or head bartender in my mind makes the best person to do your training program. A that gives somebody on your team the ability to do something cool and own it. They're going to deliver it differently. They're going to hold people to it because it's theirs. You give them the structure and philosophy. You tell them what they need to do, but let them fill in all the content, review it together, collaborate with them. This is a great training opportunity for that person. Especially if you have a head bartender that you're trying to build into management. It's a great way to have them involved and responsible for something in your bar. Training becomes a retention tool, right? Both for the person doing the training and the people being trained. So, folks, the bottom line today is you need a good training program. You need a program that covers, yes, what do I need to do to actually be effective in my job the first week? What product knowledge do I need to actually be able to sell this shit in the first month? And then ongoing training that builds skills, both that are about your bar and not about your bar long term. Because it's going to get you guest, or I shouldn't say guest, employee retention, team retention. And it's going to make your team happier, more knowledgeable, which turns into higher guest satisfaction and a bar that makes you better money and is easier to run. That about wraps it up for today. If you're tired of sorting through bar problems by yourself, come join us in Inside Bar Business Nation. It's our free Facebook group for bar owners and operators talking about what's working, what's not, and how to make the business easier to run. Search Bar Business Nation on Facebook and I'll talk to you next time.