Find. Build. Sell. by Stephen J. Hunt

Author:Stephen J. Hunt [Hunt, Stephen J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780730399872
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2022-04-11T00:00:00+00:00

‘How can you tell if someone's a vegan?'

‘Don't worry. They'll tell you.'

That was the joke Luca told me when he was being interviewed as a chef for one of my pubs. He got the job because he's an awesome chef and a terrific team player, and he has a great sense of humour (for a vegan). He couldn't have been less like me. He was single, 28, tall, thin, with a shaved head and multiple piercings through the nose, the lips and possibly other places that I don't even want to contemplate.

He had been with me for a year and was a model employee, but I could sense he was getting bored and was looking around for a new challenge, or a new job. I didn't want him to leave but didn't really have any other role for him to step into at that time. I don't like losing staff as it's expensive to find new people and time consuming to train them, so when I could see Luca losing interest (in subtle ways that my robust reporting system detected long before anyone else spotted it), I stepped in to find out what was going on.

I said, ‘Luca, let me buy you lunch (did I mention I like to have meetings over a meal?) and let's have a chat about what we can do to keep you here and stay loyal to us'. When we sat down, I asked him, ‘I can sense you're losing interest in your work. I want to work with you to see if there's something we can do to help you get that spring back in your step'.

We talked and ate and I asked him a bunch of questions about his life outside of work. The one about, ‘What do you like cooking at home?' piqued his interest.

‘Anything vegan,' he said.

‘What like?' I asked?

He rattled off a range of dishes: red curry chickpea dahl, spicy Chinese eggplant with Szechuan sauce, crispy quinoa and beetroot wraps, Peruvian burritos with creamy black beans, and more. I'm a dyed-in-the-wool meat-eater and even I liked the sound of those dishes!

‘Luca, if you could wave a magic wand over the job you currently have, what would help you stay motivated and engaged?'

Without blinking, as if he'd already thought this through, he said, ‘I'd love to replace the menu we have with a totally vegan menu'.

Now my first thought was, Shit! That's not gonna happen! What about the wagyu my regulars love? The spag bol that sells its socks off? The chicken schnitty with chips and pepper sauce? Food sales are an important part of our profit profile so I wouldn't — couldn't — take a punt on a vegan hipster messing with my margins. I had to compromise.

‘I love where you're going with this, Luca, and I really want to give you the opportunity to express your passion here under my roof, so how about we compromise? We keep the current menu, but you can create another vegan menu and we'll run them alongside each other for a month to see how it goes.

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