The Demand
Before your next shift, pick one Guest your cast has stopped treating as a discovery and ask the favorite-versus-best question the article draws: are you competing to be their best option, or building toward being their favorite? Name one behavior your cast can deliver this week — remembering a coffee order, marking an occasion unprompted, greeting a returning Guest by name — that moves that Guest from evaluating you to claiming you. Decide which behavior you will coach on this shift, not someday.
The Work
Name a Guest or Guest segment you want to move from best to favorite:
Best versus Favorite:
What would make you their best option — the comparison they are running:
What would make you their favorite — the relationship they cannot get elsewhere:
Rate, 1-5, how much of your current marketing and ops energy chases best instead of favorite:
The seen-and-remembered check:
Name one specific behavior — a name, an order, an occasion — your cast could deliver unprompted this week:
Who on your team currently models this best, and how will you spread it:
Metric check:
Are you tracking Guest Lifetime Value as a relationship metric when it is really a spend ledger — yes or no:
What you will track instead this month — return visit rate, referral behavior, or frequency growth:
The one coaching conversation you will have this week to build the behavior that makes a Guest say “my favorite”:
44 years. 200+ independent operators coached. 34 restaurants opened from scratch.
I work with restaurant operators who know something is wrong and are ready to find out what it actually is — and with leaders who are ready to build something that lasts.
The complete framework is in my new book: The Operator’s Playbook
Call or text: +1-817-797-2929 Email: Jeffrey@JeffreySummers.com
