We talk about it at smbresource all the time. And you've probably heard it before. To make your restaurant big and successful you have to work on it, not in it. But what does that really mean?

Growing a restaurant isn't all about marketing. It's just one of many components. When you start a restaurant, or any small business you become the CEO. This is an important consideration. The CEO of Ford doesn't paint cars or bolt the transmissions in. He works on growing the business.

So what do I work on? The short answer is everything. The sales and marketing, the operations of the business, the menu, training the staff, new recipes, and your long term strategy for growth. Your goal is to grow the business, not just the restaurant. That means you have to pay attention to details. As the business gets bigger the details get smaller. This is hard to swallow for many CEOs without the experience of working in a large company but it's true. I'll give you a great example. When you open up your mom and pop restaurant you might be serving drinks from a can poured in to a glass. That's fine. You keep your costs low. But it takes time. When you're running a small business or new business, you've got time. But as the business grows you need to increase efficiency. That keeps the growth moving. To do that, you purchase an automated drink machine. Now the waittress simply puts the glass under a dispenser and presses a button. While she's waiting for the drink to fill she can go check on the status of the order in the kitchen. You've now increased efficiency.

So what should my day as a restaurant owner look like? Here's what I would consider the perfect day. If you can pull this off you know you're in a growing business. You walk in at opening and find a clean store. All the employees know the procedure for opening the restaurant and getting the food prepared. For the first hour you look over last nights numbers. Did we have enough people on staff? Did we have too many people? How much food was thrown away and why? You go through the orders and find out if anything was really selling well. Then ask yourself why? Was soup selling great? If so what was the temperature yesterday? If it was cold, you've got an indicator. On cold days make more soup. You may not sell more soup, but your customers will get it faster. After spending some time on yesterday let's look at the operation now. This ideally would be an hour before the lunch rush. Is everyone just sitting around waiting for the crowd to come in? Could this time be spent doing something more productive? Use all of your resources wisely.

During the lunch rush observe. On the perfect day you don't have to worry about getting caught up in managing the restaurant. Watch the entire operation as a third party observer. Then ask yourself, "Would I want to eat here?".

Pick out one or two customers and follow them through the entire experience of dining in your restaurant. Were they seated quickly? Did a waiter approach them within a minute or two to get a drink order and place the menus? Was the food prepared promptly? Did it look appetizing or was it just thrown on the plate? When they paid the bill were they smiling? Were your employees smiling and did they thank them for their business?

Growing the restaurant long term. After the lunch rush make some notes, and a specific plan with a time attached to implement some changes. On a big yellow post-it note write down something to remind you to stay on top of the plan. Put it on the corner of your desk or somewhere that you'll see it often. Then start on your long term planning. This doesn't start out as a detailed road map. It's just a brain storm of things you can do to grow your business over a period of months, then years. If your restaurant is always crowded, and people are waiting in line consider two things. The first is expanding the size of the restaurant. The second is adding a second location.

This is the most important aspect of your second location. Put it somewhere close to the first one. Not next door, but within the same traffic pattern. This is really critical if you're customers are wating in line during the dinner and lunch rush. Most people will not wait more than a few minutes for lunch. Determine where their coming from and add the second location in that path. Ideally it would be not only in that path but also along a route that draws in potential customers from another populated area.

This is not as hard as it sounds. Just take a few hours and drive around. Focus on where your customers are coming from first, and then expand your search in small circles of a mile or two until you find another route to your new restaurant. Just make sure it sits at the point that both routes meet.

Running a restaurant can be very rewarding

But don't get caught up in just being the manager. Over time you'll get bored and business will suffer. Make sure you work on the business at least as much as you do in it. This will be stressful for the first few months. But as the business grows it keeps your mind focused on growth and new challenges.

Eric Gurr is a contributing editor at SMBresource.com Ideas for starting a business. Information for starting and running a restaurant Copywrite SMBresource.com all rights reserved, must credit and include link when using.