Turn Your Food Truck Setbacks into Progress

Setbacks are a normal part of the path to success. Rarely does a vendor go through a shift or a day without a food truck setbacks. So, it’s critical that food truck vendors keep their staff engaged, productive, and focused when things go wrong. Here are three ways to do that.

3 Ways To Turn Your Food Truck Setbacks into Progress

Regardless of the setback, there are techniques that can help you shed the disappointment, get yourself ready to move forward with enthusiasm.

Reframe the issue. Don’t treat your food truck setbacks as failures and don’t assign blame. Instead, frame them as learning opportunities and focus your truck’s team on solving problems, not wallowing in them.
Don’t limit the solution. When faced with a problem, you don’t always figure out the solution right away. Be open to changing direction and give your team the freedom to look for alternative answers.
Focus on small wins. Help your employees see their progress in other areas. If people have regular successes, even small ones, then a setback will sting less.

“Life is a series of experiences, each one of which makes us bigger, even though sometimes it is hard to realize this. For the world was built to develop character, and we must learn that the setbacks and grieves which we endure help us in our marching onward.” – Henry Ford

No matter what professional setback you’re experiencing, the most important thing you can do is to put it in perspective.

The Bottom Line

You need to accept that you will fail to from time to time. Probably multiple times. How you react to any food truck setbacks is what will determine your success. These three actions won’t completely eliminate the negative impact that setbacks have on staff engagement, but they will go a long way toward reducing it. More importantly, these actions can help turn today’s food truck setbacks into tomorrow’s successes.

Have you ever had food truck setbacks that ended up leading to a breakthrough? How did it happen? Share your thoughts on this topic in the comment section or on social media. Facebook | Twitter

About the Author: Richard Myrick

Richard Myrick is an architect by degree (Lawrence Technological University, Southfield, Michigan) who began his career in real estate development and architectural planning. In September of 2010 he created Mobile Cuisine Magazine to fill an information void he found when he began researching how to start a mobile hotdog cart in Chicago. Richard found that there was no central repository of mobile street food information anywhere on the internet, and with that, the idea for MCM was born. Richard also wrote the "Running a Food Truck for Dummies" available in bookstores everywhere and Amazon. You can reach out to Richard by email at: [email protected].