Christy Lamagna is a dynamic keynote speaker, author, and coach who uses her 30+ years in strategic planning to help people overcome their challenges and press forward. She’s also the MarCom advisor at ShedWool, a smart scheduling platform that works with restaurants and other businesses.

Here were a few of her main points on this episode of Give an Ovation:

1. Strategy = How, Why, and Where You’re Going

Christy emphasized the importance of goals in strategy. Solid goals will inform all of your later decisions and point you to what resources you need to move forward. In a large organization, it’s vital that goals set by management are thoroughly disseminated and understood by the rank-and-file members as well.

2. It’s Not About You

From the guest’s perspective, “it’s not what you want to give me, it’s about what I want to take”, according to Christy. As businesses we tend to assume what our guests want instead of asking them, which deprives us of valuable innovation. As Christy said, “Why are you brainstorming? Go ask your customers what they want.”

3. Clean Your Bathrooms

Everything communicates. No matter how nice the interior of your location looks, if your bathrooms are gross it can damage your brand image. A friend of Christy’s has the following policy: “I will always judge a restaurant by its bathrooms.”

4. Keep Up With The Jones’…And Everyone Else

Christy pointed out that your competitors aren’t only the restaurants next door, but are all the places that customer could spend their money. Nowadays that could mean eating at home or 3rd party delivery, not to mention the guy across the street.

5. You’re Allowed To Be Happy

Many times we limit ourselves through what we tell ourselves. Christy suggested challenging your limiting beliefs and asking, “why not?” You can’t overhaul your menu for COVID-19? Why not? You’ll start to see you can do more than you thought.