The Benefit of a GM Book
You can't be expected to remember everything
The thing I push more than anything when we mentor s new brewery owner, is not the equipment, or the space, or even the type of brewery it’s going to be. It’s the business system, and I have already talked about parts of it, and will continue to do so.
But one simple small portion of the business system, is a tool that will save you a lot of headaches in the years to come. I call it a GM Book, which stands for general maintenance, and not just the repair kind.
The GM Book is a calendar reference book that you glance at every day. It is simply a tool to remind you of the multitude of “once in a while” tasks you need to perform in your brewery.
Following the business system, every position in your brewery has a daily checklist of things to do. I also include in a daily checklists a weekly side work as well. For example, your bartender will follow the checklist for any given day that reminds them of stocking, cleaning, sweeping, polishing the lights, anything really that needs to be done on a daily basis to keep your business looking great. There are some things that only need to be done once or twice a week, and these go into the side work category. A bartender working a Tuesday lunch shift, may also have as a side duty to use cleanser and scrub out the floor sink.
There are, however, things that need to be done only every so often. To capture these, you will want to create your own GM Book. Your daily checklist should include a line that says “Check GM Book. That way you will remember to check this book everyday.
To do this very low-tech thing, first buy a three-ring binder. Next, from your office supply store, buy a 1-31 set of divider sheets and put them into the binder. Well done, next put a blank piece of paper in between each divider. That’s the easy part.
To fill it in, start thinking about things that only need to be done every so often. Here are some examples.
Excise Tax due 15th - put this on the 13th so you have time to do them
Blow out compressors - clean the compressors on all refrigeration at least once a month if not once a week.
Touch up paint - just through daily activity the paint in your tasting room gets chipped. Go through the room with paint and a simple paper towel dipped in for tiny touch ups.
Check Convention Center Event Calendar - if you don’t have a convention center, there may be some other thing in your town where future events are posted. You want to be aware of these so your brewery can plan for them.
Schedule employee reviews - How great if you actually remembered to sit down with employees to talk about their jobs, see if they are happy and find out if they have any suggestions on how the brewery could be improved. Practically no one does this because they are too involved in the day to day to remember to even think about it. Your employees -most of them - will appreciate it.
Do a tasting panel - This way you will remember to sit down and critically taste your beers, looking for imperfections. I do this with my off-flavor note cards.
Update inventory prices - at least once a month go through your invoices to make sure that the price you have down for items on your inventory sheets are correct. For example you may have two-row at .48 per pound, when it actually went up to .53. That will make a difference when you calculate your cost of sales. If you don’t know what I mean by inventory and cost of sales, check out this link.
There is so much more that you can add into your GM book. It will change all the time depending on the season, or how your business changes. All it takes is a simple sheet of paper added to a day. The simplest solutions, are most often the best.