Treat your staff like you treat your customers

The last couple weeks Beth Hussey, staff training expert and founder of staff training app Shifty, walked us through both the mistakes most bars and restaurants make when doing training and the proven staff training process she's used with thousands of servers and bartenders.

This week Beth just offers some quick, general words of wisdom about how to treat staff—a simple turn of phrase that can make staff training easier and staff retention a reality for your business: treat your staff like you would your customers.

Check out the short interview clip to learn more about what Beth means:

And if you're interested in digging into Shifty, head over to the the website or send Beth an email at beth@shiftyinc.com.

The last 3 weeks we covered the most searched-for craft beers, domestics, and "others" (seltzers, ciders, etc.) of the year thus far.

This week it's the big one: overall most searched-for beers (so it includes all those categories). Here's the list, with most popular at the top:

	Kid Rock's Badass Beer Pale Lager · 4.2% · Webberville, MI
	The Alchemist Heady Topper Double IPA · 8.0% · Stowe, VT
	Schlitz Pale Lager · 4.6% · San Antonio, TX
	Busch Light Apple Fruit Beer · 4.1% · St. Louis, MO
	Löwenbräu Original Helles Lager · 5.2% · München, Germany
	Indeed strawberry fields Sour Ale · 5.4% · Minneapolis, MN
	Bass Ale English Pale Ale · 5.0% · St. Louis, MO
	Medalla Light Pale Lager · 4.5% · Mayagüez, PR
	Forge Irish Stout Dry Stout · 4.3% · Dekalb, IL
	Russian River Pliny The Elder Double IPA · 8.0% · Santa Rosa, CA

The takehome
The categories represented here are interesting (i.e. it's not just craft beers), and it's hard to ID a pattern beyond the fact that most of these always turn up near the top of this list. But here are a few more thoughts:

• No doubt Kid Rock's beer is #1 because of the weeks-long (or was it months?) Bud Light controversy.
• Heady Topper and Pliny the Elder are two of the most famous—and still, after many years—sought-after craft beers.
• Schlitz is a nostalgic domestic people actually go to the internet to search for. Why? Because unlike the other domestics they know they can't get it everywhere. I've personally done exactly this.
• Ever since appearing on the scene a year or two ago Busch Light Apple has gotten a ton of steady traffic. It's something that you can get at almost any beer store so I don't know why people are searching for it, but hey: they are.
• It's surprising that there aren't any "others"—seltzers, ciders, etc.—on the list.

If there's any pattern here it's this: carry whichever of these beers you can (but skip the Kid Rock one—the guy's a dummy). Many folks just can't get some of these based on distro limits, but there are some available everywhere. Keep in mind that thousands of people are looking for these beers. If they know you have them, they'll come in.

• Women of the Vine and Spirits foundation is seeking applicants for its 2023 scholarship opportunities. The scholarships, ranging from $300 to $10K, will be awarded across 8 categories including Professional & Leadership Development, Student Educational, Continuing Education and Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET) Scholarships. Apply here!
• Research from Drizly shows that more consumers are drinking at home, presumably as a replacement for going out to bars and restaurants. Why? Inflation.
• We all know heroic (sarcastic, to be clear) "anti-woke" crusaders recently spent a significant amount of their time on earth melting down about Bud Light's tiny partnership with a transgender influencer. Well, insatiable as they seem to be, they've moved on to Miller Lite. They found a 2-month-old ad—released during women's history month—that poked fun at the history of misogyny in beer ads. There's gotta be a different hobby available to these people.
• When professional golfer Joel Dahmen hit a fan with a bad practice round tee shot, he made up for it by buying the fan's beers for the day. A beer cost $17, so it was meaningful. Also—$17 for a Michelob Ultra? Come on now.
• And finally, poultry giant Perdue partnered with NYC's Torch and Crown Brewing to make Beer Can Chicken Beer. They say the double-citrus summer ale is made for both drinking and use in the popular chicken grilling method. The beer goes on sale on May 22.