Episode 91
Bring Home The Bacon with Alan Bennett
Ever crossed paths with a top chef? In this episode, we sit down with Alan Bennett, a culinary maestro with a background in microbiology, sales, consultancy, and the food industry. Alan joins us to share his invaluable insights on mentorship and business growth within the restaurant scene.
Join us for a hearty discussion as we delve into the challenges and triumphs of mentoring young talent, navigating a diverse workforce, and the key ingredients for a thriving kitchen.
Alan shares an inspiring anecdote about a determined college student whose unwavering commitment became a cornerstone of success for his business. We'll explore the intricacies of catering to the unique needs of seasoned employees, seasoned with tales of unconventional stress relief like spontaneous egg fights.
We'll also discuss the significance of mentorship as Alan reflects on how a retired individual's offer to lend a hand revolutionized his hiring practices. This ultimately led to the establishment of a transformative mentoring program that reshaped the onboarding experience for new recruits.
As always, we're serving up encouragement and a call-to-action for our listeners to engage with the show and continue championing the heartbeat of blue-collar businesses.
Highlights:
-Dive into the heartfelt story of a retired man stepping into Alan's kitchen and how his simple desire to "get out of the house" unfolded into a life-changing mentoring program. This poignant narrative illustrates mentorship's potent role in reshaping the way we work and support each other.
-Uncover the art of teamwork in the relentless pace of a kitchen; sometimes chaotic, sometimes comedic, but always a lesson in orchestrating excellence amidst the heat. Alan even tossed in an anecdote about a raw egg fight that promises to crack you up!
-Whether you're kneading dough, welding, or crunching numbers at a desk, this episode is a reminder that recognizing the contributions of others, and the power of mentoring can have a multiplier effect on any business.
-One hire in your business can have a multiplier effect. People tend to hang out with like-minded people, so use those people to help recruit more.
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Transcript
Welcome to Blue Collar BS, a podcast that busts the popular myth that we can't find good people, highlighting how the different generations of today, the boomers, Gen X, millennials and Gen Z, are redefining work so that the industrial revolution that started in the US stays in the US.
Brad Herda [:The Blue Collar BS podcast helps blue collar business owners like you build a business that'll thrive for decades to come by turning that blue collar bs into some blue collar business solutions.
Steven Doyle [:In this episode, you're going to learn why it's crucial to do hiring pivots, the need for mentors, the importance of collaboration with your network, and that going it alone is a difficult challenge.
Brad Herda [:Our guest today is Alan Bennett, a guy who knows what he wants and has been resourceful enough to know and allow others to shine. We hope you enjoy this show.
Steven Doyle [:Welcome back to the show, my friend. Brad Herda. How are you doing today?
Brad Herda [:I am doing fantastic. Mr. Stephen Doyle, how is life in the big motor city where everybody's on.
Steven Doyle [:You know, because people are on strike. So is my Internet. So we're just going to kind of see how this goes today because it's kind of in and out. It's really great, but it's a great fall day here. It's a little drizzly. Colors are changing on the trees. It's football season.
Brad Herda [:Wow. It's going to be that kind of recording.
Steven Doyle [:I can see it's going to be that kind of recording. You want to know why?
Brad Herda [:Because you're a selfish millennial, that's why.
Steven Doyle [:Okay. Well, I think it's because we're having awesome guests today on the show.
Brad Herda [:So we do have an awesome guest. And as I go through this list, folks, you're going to go, what the hell are you guys thinking? So we got a guy, started out in microbiology, was a salesman at Buckman Laboratories, went and then sold at some other chemical organization, became a consultant in there, went into the food industry, owned his own marketplace, then a celebrity chef for 18 years on a local television show, then went to us foods to be a business specialist because he knew how to cook and knew what to do. And I can't wait for him to cook for me someday. Then owned his own catering business and then decided to get out and become a coach, just like us. So, Alan Bennett, welcome to the show, and we appreciate you being here.
Alan Bennett [:Thank you for having me. And when Stephen says in and out, that's exactly what you're getting. I've been in and out of a few things.
Brad Herda [:You have been in a lot of things. And out of not many.
Alan Bennett [:Yeah.
Brad Herda [:Because it seems like you may still dabble in a lot of those things.
Alan Bennett [:I do and I get a lot of questions. You're like, how's the connection made here? And one of the things, everything that I've done is all problem solving. That's the connection between them all. Microbiology, when it comes to science, it's problem solving. When it comes to owning your own business, it's problem solving. And when it comes to business coaching, it's problem. So there is a common denominator. In general, a layperson doesn't see it.
Steven Doyle [:I have to explain.
Brad Herda [:So let's solve this problem. Steve, ask the question. Go ahead.
Steven Doyle [:Listen, I question. So, Alan, which generation do you best fit in?
Alan Bennett [:Oh, without a doubt. X. Yeah, actually, I think I lean more towards the boomers.
Steven Doyle [:Oh, just like Brad. Full boomer.
Brad Herda [:Wow.
Alan Bennett [:Sure.
Brad Herda [:Whatever, man.
Alan Bennett [:I lean towards a boom. Right.
Brad Herda [:There's some values here, there's some respect, Steve.
Alan Bennett [:There's common courtesy.
Steven Doyle [:Yeah, there's some days that know for me. No, we're just going to go with it.
Brad Herda [:Right. All about Alan, what I really want to investigate is the food service industry and the chef things and the catering, because too often that service sector is overlooked as just. It's not important. And Steve and I. And that is about as blue collar as you're going to get. It is a grind, it is a hustle, is all of those things. So how did you get started in your catering business? And then why did you leave your catering business? Obviously, at the time, but it might have been Covid, based on 2022 potentially. But how'd you get started? Why did you go down that catering business?
Alan Bennett [:Well, there's three things I like to do. I like to hunt, fish and cook. Well, there's four, but I won't say that in public.
Brad Herda [:But it is an explicit show. But we don't want to go there. It's not that kind of explicit show.
Alan Bennett [:I didn't think I could make a living hunting or fishing. So cooking is my thing. And it's working with your hands, it's creating things. I work in the yard, I do landscape. So things that occur with my hands have always resonated with me. And that's what I get out of the cooking. I do get a pleasure out of seeing people enjoy the food, but it's more me creating it than it is what happens afterwards. That's how I got into it.
Alan Bennett [:And I originally opened up a gourmet grocery store similar to what would be today at fresh market. Okay. Before they went big, I was like a 5000 square foot fresh market. That's kind of the type of grocery store, kind of a gourmet market, more than a grocery store. And I was a trained meat cutter. I trained for a year and a half under a meat cutter. I mean, hanging meat, that type of thing. Right before I even started my business by a guy named T Bone.
Steven Doyle [:That's awesome.
Alan Bennett [:As things went on, people would come in and say, hey, we really like this or that that we made. Whether it was our black and chicken salad or lasagna or some of the meals that we made to go, they started asking for larger portions and that's how the catering business came out of it. So I actually started as a meat cutter with seafood and the whole meat counter that evolved into a catering business. And interesting enough, I didn't really want to go that path. And this is where actually didn't want.
Brad Herda [:To, but I made the decision to do it.
Alan Bennett [:Yeah, perfect. There was a guy that came into the store. He had actually retired alongside my stepfather and he worked for a company that was based out of New Orleans. And he came in one day asking, I've been open about three years. And he asked, how are things going? And he was at that time, he was in his 70s, I'm not sure how old he was, 71, I think. And he came to me and said, are you finding good health? How are things going? And I had two people that were my age and everybody else was anywhere from 16 to maybe 20 years old. Had all these kids working for me and I was running around working 100 hours, weeks. Matter of fact, I was seven days a week and I had to cut back to six because I just was running out of gas.
Alan Bennett [:I became a completely different person. You're talking about owner dependent. It's exactly the whole world evolved around what Alan did and said. And I was exhausted. He could see it on my face. And he said to me at the time, he goes, well, do you need any help? I said, yeah, I need a daytime cashier. Do you know anybody? He goes, I absolutely do. And I thought he was going to suggest his granddaughter.
Alan Bennett [:And he said, me and this guy, he lived in about a $750,000 house at that time. This was in 2003, drove a mercedes. His wife drove Alexis. This guy didn't need money. He said, alan, I've been married 42 years and if I don't get out of the house for at least 6 hours a day, I'm not going to.
Brad Herda [:Make it to 43.
Alan Bennett [:I was like, well, I can only pay you so much. He goes, look, he got it figured out. I can only work 30 hours a week and you can only pay me at that time $7 an hour. He said, you start paying me more than that, it starts messing my Social Security, right? So he was telling me what he could do, and I thought, okay, well, let's see how this goes. Well, to make a long story short, what happened was that guy was pivotal in how I started hiring people going forward. So he came in and he suggested he does a lot of after school mentoring, of reading. So there's a lot of kids, especially, at least in Little Rock, that don't know how to read, even though they were in the fourth grade, fifth grade, 8th grade, whatever it was. So they would do after school tutoring.
Alan Bennett [:And that's what he did. And he came in and said, how about I start some kind of mentoring program here where I start teaching these kids how to do customer service? And he took it on himself.
Steven Doyle [:That's awesome.
Brad Herda [:How do you fall into things like this, Alan? It's like, as I go through your list of, oh, I'm going to be a celebrity chef, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that. And then you get a guy that comes out of the, for whatever fate, faith, however you want to call it, to be pivotal in allowing you to then continue that career and move other things forward. That is awesome. And that is having folks like that in your life in some way, shape or form at some point. And kudos to you for recognizing it, that it was pivotal at that point as well.
Alan Bennett [:So I started working with him. I wanted to help me recruit more people like you. This is real. This is happening for us. And so going forward, when we would interview from 2013 for the next 17 years, I never interviewed another person in the last probably eight or nine years I was in business. I never fired a person. And what he helped me do was to devise a plan to where we would hire. When we hired somebody in, we tell them, this is a mentoring job.
Alan Bennett [:You will have somebody that's going to be your mentor. So if you work in the meat department, T Bone is your mentor. If you're gonna work at the register, then Peter is your mentor.
Brad Herda [:Oh, you mean the register guy's name wasn't cash?
Steven Doyle [:No.
Brad Herda [:Because the guy in the meat department is T Bone. The person up front should be named Cash.
Alan Bennett [:Yeah. I'm glad it wasn't sticky.
Steven Doyle [:That's funny.
Alan Bennett [:Yeah. That's where things changed for me. That allowed me to focus on how can I build my business better going forward? And that's how I was able to move more into the catering side of things and less into the retail side because I had the time and the people that would help me do it.
Steven Doyle [:Yeah, that is so crucial. And we've talked about this on many shows, is the need for mentoring in businesses. But what you highlighted is that need for mentoring helps business owners actually work on their business, not in their business. So by establishing that they have the freedom to now work on their business to actually go do other things. So kudos to you at being able to have employees that wanted to help you do that and then enabling them to see that forward and actually live out that purpose that they have for you. So that's awesome.
Alan Bennett [:Yeah. Guys, I wish I could tell you that was my plan and that was my strategy. This one guy came in and I said, hey, this is great what you're doing, helping me do. We just need more of it. And it took a while to get people out that weren't buying into it. We never fired them. We just created an environment they weren't comfortable in. Yeah.
Brad Herda [:You're going to work from 11:00 p.m. To 03:00 a.m. Stocking the shelves this week. So those are your hours?
Alan Bennett [:Yeah. Or closing on Saturday night. Oh, my gosh, you're going to be closing.
Brad Herda [:There's a football game tonight.
Steven Doyle [:Yeah.
Brad Herda [:No, you need to close on Saturday night instead. You're not going to homecoming. Sorry.
Steven Doyle [:Yeah, but just the overall awareness. So all three of us coaches, consultants. In somewhat of the blue collar space, we run into very strong willed owners, typically. So how crucial is it for business owners to recognize, hey, it doesn't always have to be their idea. And how do we help them understand that?
Alan Bennett [:The best answer I could give, and I can only speak from my experience. I think each business owner sees their business differently. For me, it was highly emotional. I had leveraged everything I own. I didn't touch my retirement, but I had some land that was leveraged. I took out a second on my house. I even refinanced a truck to get cash just to keep things going. I mean, the bank was making money, my suppliers were making money, my employees were making money, and I was struggling.
Alan Bennett [:I was working all these long hours and that type of pressure, that celebrity.
Brad Herda [:Chef gig wasn't paying a lot. Is that what you're trying to say?
Alan Bennett [:That was for free? Yeah, I didn't pay at all. That was free advertising. Yeah. There's other benefits to doing something like that. But it wasn't monetary.
Brad Herda [:But that's a very important awareness of who's all making money and where and understanding how those all have to connect and connect the dots. So when did this gentleman come into your business?
Alan Bennett [:What year? Roughly three. 2003.
Brad Herda [:So if I go back in time, right, so 2003. So that would have been putting right in the middle of that, probably coming in 16 year olds, 17 year olds would have been right in that millennial era where they were coming in the middle of the millennials coming into the workforce, younger students at 16, 1819 years old range. How did they receive that mentoring at that time? How did they perceive that sense of care and community type scenario compared to maybe how you grew up when you were a young lad?
Alan Bennett [:There was another guy that came in. He was a college student at UALR named Janssen, and he was probably the pivotal one, even though he was, I guess, 18 or 19 years old at the time. When he came in, he was fascinated with the store, and I did not have an opening. And he would come in every Saturday or Friday or Saturday and ask him, you got an opening? He was so persistent, and I did not have an opening. And I thought, this guy wants to be here. He sees what we're doing. He sees something here, and it's obvious he wants to be here. So I hired him, even though I couldn't afford him or I didn't have anything for him to do.
Alan Bennett [:And he started working circles around everybody else. And I asked him, I said, well, I need more people like you. Who do you hang out with? Who are the people that have that work ethic that you have? And he goes, I'll find you somebody. And so I said, look, we're trying to mentor here. I've got some old souls that are working here. There's T Bone, there's Peter. There's all these people that are retirement age. I said, these are the mentors.
Alan Bennett [:You got to work with these guys. He goes, I know just the people. And he started recruiting for we. I never really ran ads in the paper. I just used people that were there that were happy there to help me find the other. The problem I had with the older people that were finding their know, there's always somebody sick or dying. Know, they had to take off for funerals. I had other issues that some business owners didn't have, but they would come back, right?
Brad Herda [:They'd show up, they'd come back, but I need a know. Mabel passed away. We got to go to the funeral. Wouldn't be right. I got to go to her funeral and funeral is at noon. Sorry. Right. And you're working day shift.
Brad Herda [:I apologize, but I'll be in at four after lunch. Oh, you're catering to lunch too, weren't you? So you knew where they were going. Right.
Steven Doyle [:So, Aaron, now that you've kind of moved on from that industry and you have a different view into that industry from where you were to where things are today, what advice would you give to those business owners that are in that industry on their approach to hiring the new young generation that is out there today?
Alan Bennett [:That's a good question.
Brad Herda [:This is a hard hitting news type show here, Alan. You've listened to enough episodes to know that this is what we do here. Get to the root of those things. We are blue collar BS, aka business solutions.
Alan Bennett [:Right. That's exactly what I thought. BS stood mindset. And I can only speak from the restaurant industry. The mindset there is, the more money you make is because you work harder. It's all about the effort that you put in. There should be results that come out that match that. The working smarter sometimes doesn't resonate so much depending on that mindset.
Alan Bennett [:It's a highly emotional task that you're going. Most people may or may not know, but there's a lot of profanity that goes on in a kitchen. Come on.
Steven Doyle [:No shit.
Alan Bennett [:There is a ton of it. Yeah. I got to watch myself at church. Yeah.
Brad Herda [:You can't just say pass the f and wine in church. That's a bad idea.
Alan Bennett [:It's because they're so involved in the task at hand and they're so focused on because a lot of times, especially in the restaurant industry, and we ended up catering private schools. I had seven private schools that we contracted with. And you can't, in an environment like that or in a restaurant, waiting an extra three minutes for the food is a big deal. And so there's a lot of stress that the people that care put on themselves in order to get that food out to the quality, the standards and the time frame that it needs to be out. So that tension and those pressures really build up. And it's a challenge. It really is hard to get them to kind of come off that ledge, so to speak. That was probably my hardest part of managing the people back in the kitchens doing that.
Brad Herda [:So how did you set expectations for them to know and or set the expectations of that quality of that time, of that standard? Right. Many of the folks that probably listeners might watch Hell's Kitchen. And that's always fun. And I don't want to say it's a joke, but chicken cooks just so fast, right? It only takes meat. Only cooks so fast. Oh, we'll have that up in four minutes. Are you kidding me? I mean, how did you set your standards with your team and set those expectations in order to help reduce that stress intention?
Alan Bennett [:There was two things that I did. The first thing I did is I reached out to others in the food industry, other owners in the food industry that were not competitive with me and established a network to collaborate with them, to lean on them a little bit. And not everybody was receptive to doing that with me. But I found a small population of people locally that through my food suppliers, they were able to help me connect to people that would be receptive to helping me, help me understand, help me kind of guide these people. And so I would take information from them and get tips from them. Try that in the kitchen and see what would work. Some work pretty good. Some was a train wreck.
Alan Bennett [:Just kind of feeling my way through there. And the second thing I did was I used a stopwatch, and I would ask them all to do a stopwatch and say, the next time you make this dish, let's time it. Let's see how long it's taken us to do it. So I was able to help control my labor costs, knowing how much time each person and what they were paid, how much money went into making that big pan of lasagna, or whatever it is. I'm just using lasagna as an example. So that way I knew that if I had two guys on the clock, one was making $12 an hour and one was $16 an hour, and it took them 45 minutes to make that dish. I could then calculate my labor cost in each pan of lasagna. It also would tell me that 45 minutes is about as fast as it can go.
Alan Bennett [:So if there's an issue, then I need to budget more time in there for the uhoh that may come up. Whatever the uhoh may be, there's never.
Brad Herda [:In a kitchen or a construction site or anywhere like that. Everything goes.
Steven Doyle [:Manufacturing plant.
Brad Herda [:There are no uhoh. Alan, we're out of noodles. We're out of pasta. Uhoh. Where's the rest of the beef?
Alan Bennett [:Yeah, they don't use the word uhoh. There's other words that they use in the kitchen.
Brad Herda [:Oh.
Alan Bennett [:I walked in one day. There was an egg fight. They were throwing raw eggs at each other. I'm like, what in the hell is going on back? Two of my cooks had gotten in a fight and the best they could come up with. Thank goodness they didn't use a knife, but they were throwing eggs at each other. I wish I was making that up.
Brad Herda [:I would have loved to have seen.
Steven Doyle [:That just walking in, just the sheer look of. Are you effing kidding me right now?
Brad Herda [:What are you boys doing? I'm going to go call your mama right now. And there's going to be a whooping here soon. So taking some of those things. Right, the stopwatch, other activity, how did that prepare you? How did going through those learning experience and everything now prepare you to be able to do what you're doing to support your clients today? What's your biggest takeaway from that journey?
Alan Bennett [:Empathy. Yeah, without a doubt. Empathy. And I try not to overuse empathy because I think there's a fine line there. But one of the things when I'm dealing with anybody, just so you know.
Brad Herda [:Steve doesn't have any.
Steven Doyle [:I have empathy. Sympathy is what does not exist in this movie.
Brad Herda [:It's way on the bottom of the list, though. Sympathy and empathy, both.
Steven Doyle [:Empathy. Oh, I understand, but I don't care. There's a difference.
Brad Herda [:Okay, sure.
Steven Doyle [:Anyway.
Alan Bennett [:When I'm talking with clients, especially in the service industry of some sort, whether they're Plumbers or whether they're running a restaurant, is, I try to make that connection with them to help them understand. I've been there. I understand the world. I may not understand your world, but I understand the stress and the pressures and what it is you're trying to accomplish. And I know that working harder isn't necessarily getting you there each day. Sometimes it works, and a lot of times it doesn't. And so that is for me, because I know they're wanting to go from a to b, whatever b is. They just don't know how to get there because they're so caught in the trench.
Alan Bennett [:Right. It's the hands. We move our hands and our bodies in order for things to be produced or repaired or whatever it is that we do. And so they think more of that action is what's necessary, and it's to help them get the vision that maybe working smarter isn't about how heavy of a weight I can lift, it's about how we get the weight to move, whether I'm moving it or somebody else is moving.
Steven Doyle [:Yeah.
Brad Herda [:It takes 45 minutes to make the lasagna. We'll put 45 guys on and I'll be done in a minute.
Steven Doyle [:Problem?
Alan Bennett [:Just start throwing the egg.
Brad Herda [:45 guys to make that panel. Lasagna in 1 minute. My labor costs are almost next to nothing because I'm paying everybody for a minute.
Steven Doyle [:Good lord.
Brad Herda [:Doesn't that work that way?
Alan Bennett [:Alan, come on. Not exactly, no.
Brad Herda [:Okay. So somebody wants to find you, get a hold of you, understand what you do today, et cetera. Where do they get you? Where do they find you? How do they get to know you?
Alan Bennett [:Yes. Email or calling? Either one works great.
Brad Herda [:Boomer. Definitely.
Alan Bennett [:Boomercoaching.com. It's a good way to.
Brad Herda [:I'm sorry, what was the email address again?
Alan Bennett [:Abennett@focalpointcoaching.com. Got you.
Brad Herda [:Okay. I thought you said homecooking.com. Like, what the hell is that?
Alan Bennett [:Actually, you know what? I've been so inspired by you guys. I am starting my own podcast.
Brad Herda [:What?
Alan Bennett [:I have been so inspired by you too. I'm starting my own podcast. Matter of fact, I've also got a website built.
Brad Herda [:What's the podcast? What are you talking about?
Alan Bennett [:Bring home the bacon.
Steven Doyle [:What? I'm in for Bacon always.
Alan Bennett [:I had you at bacon. The concept is I will be interviewing restaurant and catering owners. And the goal of the interview is to help other restaurant and catering businesses grow value. How to become better, how to bring home the bake.
Brad Herda [:Similar to what you created back when you had your own business, where you reached out to your food supplier, say, hey, we need to work together.
Alan Bennett [:Yeah.
Steven Doyle [:Weird how this all circles back.
Brad Herda [:Wow. And you're doing it in modern technology versus the old technology.
Alan Bennett [:Yeah. Awesome. That's great. So the website is bringhomethebacon Co. I didn't have the funds to buy the.com version.
Steven Doyle [:Right.
Brad Herda [:Let's see.
Alan Bennett [:Bring Homebacon Co.
Steven Doyle [:That's awesome.
Brad Herda [:Oh, look at that. Nice picture there, Alan.
Steven Doyle [:All cleaned up and no place to go. Got it.
Alan Bennett [:Oh, man.
Brad Herda [:Who has bacon in a straight line like that, Alan, in that logo? There's no waves here. Bacon. It's not crispy bacon. Come on, you need to rework that bacon. That bacon strips got to have some twist to it for your profit growth in your logo.
Alan Bennett [:Right, man?
Brad Herda [:Send it back to the designer.
Steven Doyle [:Love lost right there. Wow, Brad, getting right into it.
Brad Herda [:Absolutely. Come on, he's better than man.
Steven Doyle [:Hey, well, on that note, Alan, awesome.
Brad Herda [:That is fantastic.
Steven Doyle [:Yeah, absolutely awesome. Thank you for being a guest on our show today. It was great having you.
Brad Herda [:We appreciate Alan, and we'll talk to you soon.
Alan Bennett [:All right, see you guys later.
Brad Herda [:Thanks. Thank you for listening to blue collar BS brought to you by Vision Forward business solutions and professional business Coaching, Inc. If you'd like to learn more on today's topic, just reach out to Steve Doyle or myself, Brad Herda. Please like share rate and review this show as feedback is the only way we can get better. Let's keep blue collar businesses strong for generations to come.
