YouSaid · the spoken record

Cameron Mitchell

lines on the record: 74
first: 2019-01-25
most recent: 2019-01-25
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Albert, you're going to get the same. We are in coast to coast. We're as far west as Beverly Hills to New York and everywhere in between. And we talk about our culture and values. You know, we have the same training programs across the company. We have the same standards, et cetera. But our culture and values is the backbone of what we do. And I look at it this way. We teach our people our culture and our values. We teach them how to think. And if they know how to think, they'll know what to do. And so early in our earlier years, our culture and values as we spread out of town did not resonate as well as it did out of town as it does in town.”
2019-01-25 · Masters in Business · Cameron Mitchell Discusses the Restaurant Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Otherwise. Yes, that's the answer exactly. And every new associate starts with the company, goes through a four-hour orientation into the company culture and philosophy and values and so forth. And we make every new associate that starts with a company of chocolate milkshake that day. And we take it a lot further than that. We make thousands of chocolate milkshakes every year. We start every major meeting, every staff meeting with a milkshake toast, everybody celebrating great people delivering genuine hospitality. And yes is the answer. What's the question?”
2019-01-25 · Masters in Business · Cameron Mitchell Discusses the Restaurant Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And it's like she punched me right in the stomach right there in the street. And I went into our Monday morning executive committee meeting, fired up, and said, you know, our yes is the answer. What's the question is not permeating our organization well enough. We need to correct this. And so we started to brainstorm and we started, well, let's tell that story. Let's make a video of that story. And let's do milkshake pins. Let's make milkshake the icon of hospitality and CMR, all great stuff.”
2019-01-25 · Masters in Business · Cameron Mitchell Discusses the Restaurant Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right. And now it's that milkshake I wanted in the first place. Exactly. So I get the milkshake. And a couple weeks later on the keynote speaker at a 500-person luncheon for a local business magazine. I'm telling this story, how the answer is yes. What's the question? Or yes is the answer? What's the question? However you want to phrase it. And I tell the story. And so about two weeks later, a gal comes up to me on the street. She said, my husband saw you speak at the Hyatt, thought she did a great job, and wanted to take you up on your milkshake story. And so he went into one of your restaurants to the bar in order to try to order a chocolate milkshake. And they said no.”
2019-01-25 · Masters in Business · Cameron Mitchell Discusses the Restaurant Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And she said, yes, but she chastised me. She says, okay, sir, but it'll be expensive. And she was visibly upset with me and my wife. By the way, while you're all...”
2019-01-25 · Masters in Business · Cameron Mitchell Discusses the Restaurant Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exactly. And I want to know why. So she comes over and she says, well, the thing is we pre-portion our ice cream. If we give your son a little bit of ice cream, what are we going to do with the rest? Now, I've been in the restaurant business at this point in time, 20 plus years. I know no one's in back pre-portioning the ice cream. And I say, okay, I said, well, can you make a chocolate milk for me? Now she's great hospitality, absolutely. I'll get you a chocolate milk and starts to turn away. I said, hmm, hold on a second. She had two hot desserts on the menu. It said, warm carrot cake and chocolate brownie dessert. I said, What's a la mode mean? She goes, Well, that's a scoop of ice cream. I said, perfect. Can I get an order of a la mode to go with my chocolate milk?”
2019-01-25 · Masters in Business · Cameron Mitchell Discusses the Restaurant Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Turkey Club. Right, right. So then I ask her for a chocolate milkshake for my son. And she goes, Well, all we have is a Hagenas milkshake. It's like a quart of soft whipped ice cream. It's huge. It's way too big for your son. We just can't do it. And I said, okay. I said, can I ask your manager? So she goes to ask her manager. I see the manager shake her head no. She comes back and says, we can't do it. I said, okay. Well, can you have your manager come over to see me? My wife starts to kick me under the table. Don't do this. And I said, I just want to know why.”
2019-01-25 · Masters in Business · Cameron Mitchell Discusses the Restaurant Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They had the cheese and they had the grill. How hard is that been? And if you can saute this on both sides, that'd be fabulous. I get that.”
2019-01-25 · Masters in Business · Cameron Mitchell Discusses the Restaurant Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I wanted a grilled cheese sandwich. I have my four year old, my two year old with me, my wife, and my mother and father-in-law. And so I want to get a grilled cheese from my four-year-old son. And the gal says, we don't have grilled cheese. I said, oh, okay. So I ended up ordering a club sandwich, hold the turkey ham, let us tomato bacon.”
2019-01-25 · Masters in Business · Cameron Mitchell Discusses the Restaurant Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We pretty much believe we can take about anybody. So we don't really do much outside hiring. 90% of our people come in from the hourly associate ranks and prove themselves at that point and get promoted and grow with our company. Not to say we don't outside hire, but very rarely. I don't want people to work and build their careers with the company and have us outside hire someone on top of them after they've worked for the company for years. So talent really identifies itself.”
2019-01-25 · Masters in Business · Cameron Mitchell Discusses the Restaurant Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Style of working through the people. We are here to support our people. And then when I realized it's not how well I do my job, it's how well everybody else does their job is what's important. And all my focus was on supporting all of my fellow associates that worked in that restaurant and the whole thing changed on a dime.”
2019-01-25 · Masters in Business · Cameron Mitchell Discusses the Restaurant Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, it changed my life. One day as a young general manager, I was working my tail off 80, 90 hours a week, and I thought how successful the restaurant would be, how well I did my job and how hard I worked. And my boss called me into his office and said he just had a clandestine meeting with eight servers who were going to have mutiny on the bounty. And either I go or they go. And he said, listen, he's going to stay, but I want you to stay and let me talk to him. And so he told me about this meeting. I was shocked. I thought I was doing a great job. And I wasn't even focused on the people. I wasn't even worried about the people. I was running around falling around the restaurant and making sure they were doing their job right, et cetera, et cetera, with a fine tooth comb and driving them nuts, basically. So I said to them, I said, I'll change my attitude. I'll change my way. And I read several books and I thought and I reflected and I created this leader.”
2019-01-25 · Masters in Business · Cameron Mitchell Discusses the Restaurant Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, our culture in many ways deals with that, but in particular I've always led the organization believing we lead the organization for 98%, 99% of the people that are good, not the one or two percent of the people that are bad. And so yes, Do we have people that take advantage of us sometimes? Yes, we do, but we don't let that affect the positive work environment that we have in a great company culture that we have for the other 99% of our people to enjoy.”
2019-01-25 · Masters in Business · Cameron Mitchell Discusses the Restaurant Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, search with us. We say yes to our people all the time. And they know that. And so yes is the answer. What's the question permeates every single corner of our organization? And it might be as simple as a manager talking with some friends and, hey, we're going to go out of town in three weeks for the long weekend you want to go. He doesn't say, or she does not say, I have to ask my boss. They say yes. I can go, no problem. And then they go tell their boss they're going to be away for a weekend coming up here. And so that freedom and that belief that it's good for me, it's good for you. And so our whole team operates on that.”
2019-01-25 · Masters in Business · Cameron Mitchell Discusses the Restaurant Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, we've all heard the customer comes first. That's preached almost everywhere. And here I am as CEO of a restaurant company. I would say our customers do not come first. Our associates come first. I'm even brazen enough to say we don't even have a direct relationship with our customers. We have a direct relationship with the people we work with day in and day out. Our customers, who I call guests, come to see us once a week, once a month, once a year, sometimes once never God forbid. But we have the direct relationship with our people. So I look, I describe it as a triangular relationship. We take care of our people. Our people take care of our guests. And our guests take care of our company. So that's how we do it”
2019-01-25 · Masters in Business · Cameron Mitchell Discusses the Restaurant Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think those long, hard hours not having a great attitude is a standard image of the restaurant business, if you will. But in our company, it's not quite the same. Our company, our number one value as our associates come first. I tell people our company is built by its people for its people. We're not built for our investors. We're not built for me. We're built for our people.”
2019-01-25 · Masters in Business · Cameron Mitchell Discusses the Restaurant Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The two questions I get asked thousands of times is where do you get such great people and how do you deliver such great service? And I tell people, the answer is the same to essentially both questions. We get the same people everybody else gets. I actually don't think it's that hard to get great people because I think everybody operates on a premise almost that everybody's great. We just treat people great and we inspire people to grow and learn. And we care about them tremendously, and they in turn care about us, and they wanted to deliver great service and they get excited about our company, and they want to build their career. And it's such a positive momentum that permeates the entire organization.”
2019-01-25 · Masters in Business · Cameron Mitchell Discusses the Restaurant Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so I said if I. If I'm going to be president of a restaurant company, I better know about food. And I was already working in the kitchen, but I didn't know anything about food. So I said, I'm going to go to the CIA and learn about food.”
2019-01-25 · Masters in Business · Cameron Mitchell Discusses the Restaurant Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That was totally the key difference. And once I, and I've been goal oriented ever since, I still have on my desk today my fourth quarter goals for my career. For the next 15 years. So I've been a goal setter since day one and it's worked well for me and I'm still doing it today.”
2019-01-25 · Masters in Business · Cameron Mitchell Discusses the Restaurant Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I woke my mom up at one in the morning, so I know what I want to do with myself the rest of my life. And she was quite relieved, needless to say. I got up the next morning. And now I was working for my, I did a complete 180 degree turn. I was working for myself. My future, for my career, I had the best attitude in the kitchen. I was the hardest working guy in the kitchen. And the day before, I was the laziest guy in the kitchen, lousy attitude, and working for the man and working for beer money.”
2019-01-25 · Masters in Business · Cameron Mitchell Discusses the Restaurant Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, in that restaurant was a very busy restaurant. We'd probably do a thousand people that day between lunch and dinner. And four o'clock in the afternoon, shift change. The restaurant's half full, the bars packed with happy hour, the AM shift is trying to leave. The PM shift is trying to come on. The managers are barking orders and it's kind of pandemonium in the kitchen. And time froze. I looked across the line in the kitchen and I said, I absolutely love this. This is what I'm going to do the rest of my life. I'm going to be in the restaurant business. So I worked my double shift and I went home that night and I wrote out my goals. I said I was going to go to the Culinary Institute of America and Hyde Park, New York. I had heard about that. I'm 19 years old. I was going to graduate and I was going to become executive chef by the time I was 23, general manager at 24, regional manager at 26, vice president of operations at 30, and president of a restaurant company by the time I was 35.”
2019-01-25 · Masters in Business · Cameron Mitchell Discusses the Restaurant Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I have a suspender for three days, put on 30 days probation, and during the middle of that probationary period, it was a Friday afternoon. And during shift change, I was working at AM Cook that day in a PM host at the same restaurant.”
2019-01-25 · Masters in Business · Cameron Mitchell Discusses the Restaurant Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I was just turned 19 at the time. I've been out of high school for about a year, and I was living at home with mom working for beer money, working for the man, not a boy, but not yet a man, and just really squandering. I was working two jobs in the restaurant business and I had trouble getting to work on time in the morning and I got put on a three-day suspension and 30 days probation So midway through that probationary period, and I'm just trying to figure out what I want to do in my life. And I just have been struggling. And so I didn't want to go right off to college because I didn't want to go to college not knowing what I wanted to do.”
2019-01-25 · Masters in Business · Cameron Mitchell Discusses the Restaurant Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, it depends on how far back you want to go, but I had a troubled childhood and a troubled youth and struggled in high school and ran away from home and dropped out of high school when I was 15. And my folks were divorced and my mom didn't have any money. And so when I came back, it would have been my junior year. I didn't have any money for lunch money. She couldn't give me lunch money and I needed to work. I needed to get a job. I got a job in 1980 as a local steakhouse washing dishes for $2.65 an hour and did that and bus tables and prepped a little bit through my junior and senior year in high school. And that's how I found my entree into the restaurant business.”
2019-01-25 · Masters in Business · Cameron Mitchell Discusses the Restaurant Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source