What you can learn from Hell’s Kitchen

Early in 2009 I believe, I wrote a series of blog posts regarding one of my favorite shows, Hell’s Kitchen. We love watching that show and Chef Ramsey is a favorite at the Birch household. One of the reasons I love watching this show is because there are real lessons you can learn for your own business by watching Ramsey work. He commitment to a superior product each and every time he steps in the kitchen is incredible.

We were watching the second episode tonight and something dawned on me. The self evaluation he requires of his chef’s is amazing. If it isn’t perfect, superior, and better than everyone else, that risotto is going back to the kitchen. Each and every plate is reviewed and evaluated. Before it goes out it is measured against their standard, their expectations.

Isn’t that so amazingly important? It is vital in a service business like JEBCommerce. Every deliverable to our clients has to live up to our standard, has to be better than our clients expect and exceed their expectations. Our affiliates need to know that the product coming out of our shop on behalf of our clients is complete and beats their expectations.

At our agency, we are very clear with our standards, what we expect, the quality of our deliverables to both affiliates and clients. We’ve taken some of the concepts, and definitely the passion, that someone like Chef Ramsey shows in his kitchen and apply and focus that in our affiliate management.

Have you taken a good look at the work you are doing? Have you put your work on “the pass” and reviewed the speed and quality before it went to your customers, whether they are clients, affiliates or consumers? Have you been able to take a real good look at the work that you are putting out. Have you asked yourself how it stands up to your expectations and standards. Should you send it back to the kitchen.

I love that this show not only is entertaining, I mean who doesn’t love when he kicks a garbage can across the kitchen, but it inspires me to go back to all the work that we do and look at it objectively. It moves me to ask myself and my team, is this good enough? Are we meeting our standards? Are we as good as we can be? Are we as fast, efficient, comprehensive and innovative as we can be? Are you? I’d love to hear what you think and would enjoy your sharing any stories you have. Do tell…