Do you have a photographic memory? Do your employees? If not, you need an operations manual.

I’m going to tell you what should be in it.

I'm not going to tell you exactly what your operations manual should include because it's up to you. The material could vary a little bit from property to property but the frame or structure I'm going to share with you is universal.

You don't have to write all this down because first, it's a long list and second, you can find it at
KeystoneHospitalityDevelopment.com/KHDC198.

If you are a member of the Hospitality Property School Group, you can access a link to a pdf with the list in the resource section.

I do suggest keeping a pen and paper handy in case you think of information you would like included.

Statistically, nine out of every 10 businesses fail within the first five years, this is why you should not look at your hospitality property as an independent business. If you look at McDonald's, Starbucks, big chain hospitality properties, more of them succeed because they are set up for consistency - they are franchises and 75% or more of franchises succeed.

Part of the reason for their success is due to having a standard operations manual in place.

If you're a small property, your chances of success will increase dramatically if you are determined and take the time to develop an operations manual.

As I mentioned before in our last episode, your operations manual should be treated as a living, breathing entity and can be amended accordingly as trial and error findings are made.

When designing your manual, you must always have in the back your mind,
"Can I open a second location with this operations manual model and not have any problems?"
or
"Can I open 10 locations with this operations manual model and not have any problems?"
or
"Can I open 1000 locations with this operations manual model and not have any problems?"

Your goal must be to develop the best working system of the operations manual model and when it's complete your system must work like clockwork.

"What should go in your operations manual model?"

As I said before
EVERYTHING!

An example I have used in the past is McDonald's.
The next time you walk into one of their locations, take a moment to look at the operation.

•Look at the décor of the restaurant

•How you are greeted by the employee

•Their uniforms

•The distance between the ovens-to the burger slides-to the register

•How the fries are cooked on a timer

In theory, no matter what location you find yourself in a McDonald's restaurant all the above will be the same. The reason, they are all working from the same operations manual model.

You may or may not enjoy the franchise but there is no way you cannot respect their system.

You might be thinking

"I'm in the small hospitality property industry, why are you talking about McDonald's?"

That is easy, the theory is the same, it's an operations manual model that works, there is no reason for you to try and rediscover the wheel, instead, copy a model that works and use it.

Your operations manual will contain a large amount of information including, a detailed organizational role responsibility list (who was responsible for what, with a diagram if applicable)

Continue reading and I'll tell you what should you include in your operations manual...

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