Dan's podcast

Dan Cosgrove talks about the increase in employee theft during the holidays, and what restaurants and other service-dependent businesses can do to make sure it doesn’t rob them of their profits.

A licensed Private Investigator, Dan has conducted Integrity Surveys over the past two decades, to identify employee theft in restaurants, bars and other retail establishments and to help owners develop effective loss prevention programs. If we just look at the restaurant industry, employee theft in that industry alone consumes billions of dollars of profits annually; estimates are that it represents up to 4 percent of sales.

Dan estimates that he has personally observed over 3,000 instances of employee theft!
These observations have helped him to come up with tips that every restaurant, bar or service-dependent business can and should use to protect their business.

Dan discusses why workplace theft increases during the holidays, and what owners can do to minimize it. This is what you will learn:

• Why employee theft is a fact of life throughout the year
• How poor hiring and training practices can contribute to a rise in holiday employee theft
• Why relying on honest employees to report theft is a bad idea
• How to easily spot some of the most frequent forms of employee theft
• What actions owners should take to minimize theft—and why
• How a professional mystery shopping/integrity survey firm can help pinpoint problems and develop effective theft prevention practices.

Dan interviews Tracy Smith, Lead Franchise Coach of Dream Dinners, www.DreamDinners.com, a wildly successful chain of Fix & Freeze meal stores. Dream Dinners not only created a new category in the marketplace that is so successful that competitors now abound, they have also grown to a phenomenal 250 franchise stores since they started in 2002 with another 67 stores in development.

Part of this edition of Exec Insights covers the role that mystery shopping surveys, customer service evaluations and other tools and techniques have had in helping them to achieve a legendary reputation with their customers: 92% of their surveyed customers would recommend them to their friends and family!

Tracy discusses the challenges faced when launching a new consumer concept, building it through a franchise network, the pressures of rapid expansion and identifying key customer interaction management skills. This is what you will learn:

• Taking a New Offering from Concept to Rollout
• Franchisee Selection and Management
• Mining Mystery Shopping Intelligence for Guidance
• Realities of New Market Competition
• Finding the Competitive Niche
• Protecting the Quality Offering
• Monitoring for Compliance and Consistency
• The Consumer Experience and its Impact on Sales

Dan interviews Valerie Casares, Mercantile Systems President, on what makes a great mystery shopper and why that matters to your business results. Valerie discusses the attributes she looks for when hiring and training their mystery shoppers and why it is so important to getting reliable intelligence businesses can act upon for immediate gains. This is what you’ll learn:

 Checking the Checkers – accuracy is critical
 Getting the Right Shoppers – what fit matters
 Attributes of a Great Mystery Shopper – it’s not as easy as it seems
 Color Commentary –how the mystery shopper writes their report can make the difference between an “Ah Ha” insight and just another fact
 How Do You Know? – what to look for in your mystery shopping provider