In 2022, I came across this amazing book. Mike Bausch had me at his first F-bomb, and I knew immediately he spoke my language and was really living this. I was glued to the pages, made highlights, and made notes on questions I had. Mike really challenged my thoughts, and I wanted to know so much more. So, I stalked his social media to learn more, thinking if I could just learn one more thing… just one more thing.

One day, I commented on his post, telling him how much I enjoyed his book and was thrilled when he messaged me back. We scheduled a Zoom meeting; the next year was just a whirlwind. Mike spent real time deep-diving into everything restaurant management with me. As a member of the Unsliced community, I met amazing, like-minded people and was able to open up, be real, and get real-life feedback without judgment. They became my Unsliced family. It was so cool being a part of the first class of graduates to be included alongside some amazing Owners such as Christina Martin, Bill & Cheryl Crawford, Ciaran Kelly & Joe Ledwidge. It was awe-inspiring.

Restaurant life is hard; owning a restaurant is harder. But it didn't have to be. Systems are the key, and I realized I was working hard “in” my business but not putting the time into working "on" my business. This was a fast-forward button that I needed desperately. I now have a path to make this happen because Mike handed me the best tools - now I just need to use them. I'm grateful to Mike for sharing his experience, sharing his time, sharing his passion, and helping me find my path. I can officially announce that I am one of the first graduates of his course and am officially "Unsliced".

MIKE IS THE BEST; I love this guy; thanks for sharing your wisdom and making restauranting not feel so hard. This is how I feel about what Mike has created, and I want whoever reads this to know that I’ve owned a bunch of concepts over the years and done all sorts of self-help, but nothing like this and Unsliced. It’s so approachable but still such a game-changer.

Before discovering Mike and all of the Unsliced Restaurant System, I felt like I was constantly navigating through a fog of financial BS. I hesitated to own my situation and relied too much on my accountant for numbers and not enough on delegating to my staff. Now my world has shifted from erratic weekly results to consistently hitting profitability. I recently achieved a record 13% profit margin in one week by boosting our catering services and keeping a tight rein on labor costs.

One of the most exciting outcomes for me has been the impact of the speed board concept, one of Mike’s systems, on my team. It’s ignited a new spirit of competition and enthusiasm. This tool has resulted in an otherwise decent but not exceptional team member, taking the entire team by storm and challenging ME (!!!!) to a pizza-making race. I’ll have to ruin his day when I smoke his time, but I appreciate the buy-in.

The transformation in my business management skills has been life-changing. For instance, right now, I’m taking a 6-day trip to Mexico (I am on a flight as I’m writing this), and I’m not sweating ONE SINGLE DETAIL because I now know how to delegate and manage a manager, and my processes are sound. For reference, I had to cancel a non-refundable family trip last February because the wheels fell off my restaurant three days before we took off.

I can’t thank Mike enough for not only creating this program, but also for sharing it to independent restaurant owners like us.

The course is powerful. Simply stated, it’s truly powerful. There are so many tools to make our job and our business successful. As you get through each module, you start unpacking all these great tidbits and training tools, and it’s just something that was needed. For someone restarting in the business after growing up in it, this has been an invaluable course, and I look forward to how it will change our business. My family owned franchises, and I was happy to take a different path in law enforcement for 30 years, but coming back to the restaurant industry meant learning fast to make up for lost time.

The most significant change I’ve seen since the course has been a central focus on what I want to do and convey to my employees. We’re developing handouts in guidebooks, recipes, formulas, and P&Ls; you put it all together, and It’s like the cosmos of ideas out there, but now it’s refined, directed, and more focused. Even the employees are starting to jump on board with all these accountability sheets, and they really enjoy it. They see the benefit of having such a centralized focus now.

It’s helped me put a plan together, and getting a rock-solid and immediate ROI is well worth the investment. And I’ll continue to see that investment grow as the months and days go by as I continue to reinvest and implement all these different learning techniques I’ve learned in the course. The return on investment is definitely well worth it.

Also, the whole Unsliced community is striving for the same goal, and they’re committed to responding to different posts, helping out, and adding suggestions. You reacting to their posts, and they respond to yours, creating a centralized town hall meeting space for everybody to get together and interact. Everything in this program is super professionally done, modules are well laid out with great intros, and all the associated documents load properly, and you have them for your future.

We get so busy in the daily grind that finding time to create tools is foolish if you have someone who has worked their whole career to achieve these tools willing to share them with you., Somebody who has been in the game at a very high level as an actual owner for 20 years, yeah, that’s the guy I want to learn from, and I’m glad I did. My wife and I are able to operate at a much higher level because of Unsliced.

What stood out the most was the way Mike breaks down something overwhelming like numbers and makes it much easier to not only understand but act on. How and what metrics determine your monthly, weekly, and yearly financial success? I never had that info presented to me that way.

Also, learning how to identify our customer avatar. Identifying who our customers really are has helped to solidify who we are going after, how we attract, and how to draw that person into our business and make their experience amazing. That way, they’ll come back again and again and refer us to other customers. So much was gained from the course, and those two really stood out for our business.

I’ve had a few people ask me about Unsliced, and my answer has been, “You should do it yesterday.” I mean, it’s super valuable. You’re going to enjoy it, which I didn’t think I would end up saying, that the work would be fun, and your ROI will be tremendous, and it’s just going to really help focus.

The Unsliced Restaurant System is extremely COMPREHENSIVE. Unsliced is truly all-encompassing without ever overwhelming. I don’t care if you have an MBA in business or didn’t finish high school. This program gives you an end-to-end perspective on your business to ensure success. It shows exactly what to implement and how to make it happen.

We had two goals when we started Unsliced: our training program and financial reporting. It fully accomplished those two goals and many more we didn’t expect. The course allowed us to look at every part of our business and discover things we needed to improve that we hadn’t even thought about. Essential things we didn’t expect, like proper communication. The most significant change we’ve seen in our business after doing unsliced is the ability to communicate effectively with our management teams and to have our expectations meet their output to hold them accountable.

Additionally, I can’t speak enough of the unsliced community, and I just can talk with people in situations similar to ours. It’s been a fantastic Avenue to go to others for ideas, celebrate successes, and have a consistent source of motivation for what we do in our daily lives from others living it, just like us.

The biggest ROI has come from our revised recipe cards and how we approach our menu pricing. We now have significantly greater visibility into what it costs us to produce our menu items and we set prices accordingly, leading to increased revenue and profits. It has also led to more clear standards and higher quality, which is bringing back repeat customers. That alone has paid for the program multiple times over.

I really can’t emphasize enough how solid the Unsliced Restaurant System is. We pride ourselves on our restaurant, our team, and what we were already doing, and this just made us that much more efficient and cohesive as a profitable restaurant.

If I had to pick just one word to describe the impact of the Get Unsliced Course on our business, it’d be ‘mindblowing.’ After 26 years in the grind across three locations, I thought I’d seen it all. But just one hour with Mike made me realize there’s much more to learn.

Mike’s straightforward, no-nonsense approach was a breath of fresh air. It wasn’t just about getting things done; it was about doing them systematically and purposefully. Sharing these insights with my store managers, I expected resistance, but instead, they asked, ‘When do we start?’

The changes have been profound – from our staff’s attitude to the culture within our stores. It’s all about making our core values visible and lived experiences, transforming our workplace into a community that’s hard to leave.

The return on investment? Staggering. Simple strategies like reevaluating our relationships with suppliers—distinguishing between partners and pariahs—saved us over £60,000. Not to mention, operational tweaks, like adjusting our approach to inventory and engaging customers with upselling, significantly boosted our bottom line.

Working with Mike and tapping into the Unsliced community has been a game-changer. The openness, shared resources, and collective drive for success are unlike anything I’ve experienced. And for anyone on the fence about joining, I can assure you the value far exceeds the investment. It’s not just about food; it’s about revolutionizing any business with clarity, vision, and a bit of Mike’s wit.

The Unsliced Course isn’t just a learning platform; it’s a catalyst for profound business transformation and community building. My advice? Dive in. The rewards, both in financial terms and personal growth, are genuinely mind-blowing.