Succeed by design — tips for young Valley business owners

Ahmad Alatrash

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Opinion

4 things I’ve learned as a young Arizona business owner

Growing a small, late-night street taco stand into a 10-store enterprise over the course of a decade hasn’t been easy, but it’s been educational and rewarding.

My brother, Naser, and I didn’t have any formal business training when we opened Mesquite Fresh Street Mex in Old Town Scottdale’s entertainment district in 2015, feeding late-night clubbers and shift workers from our 500-square-foot space.

I attribute our success to four principles that I use to guide my leadership decisions each day and that other young business owners may want to consider as they pursue their dreams.

Assemble top-tier teams

Curating a team of top talent that aligns with your brand should start on day one of the hiring process. Before hiring, identify core personality traits, create a list and use it to screen potential candidates. Leadership should also be conscious about modeling core values during team meetings and employee activations so there is no question about what you’re looking for.

There is also power in calling out and rewarding hard work by employees. At Mesquite, rewards can range from taking employees out for a fun team activity to bonuses for individuals.

Valuing employee feedback and encouraging staff to let leadership know how promotions, new items and systems are performing is critical, too. Employees must feel heard and know that their opinions matter.

Keep things simple

Large offerings can overcomplicate business operations and lead to imperfections that hurt your business instead of helping it. If you look at Mesquite’s menu, you may notice it’s very simple. I believe in “getting rich in one’s niche” or honing a small skill set that can be performed very well is a key to success.

We’ve had a decade to assess our products with trial and error, allowing us to discover a formula for food preparation and delivery that ensures it can be made quickly and in high quality.

Stay consistent

When a patron visits your location or your website, they expect a good experience. To ensure quality interaction with employees as well as product or service consistency, create and adhere to internal systems.

When we first created our systems, we identified clear goals and standards for customer service and products. To this day, our systems undergo rigorous research and development and are reviewed by staff members at multiple locations before rollout.

One benefit of having tried and tested step-by-step systems is that it makes new employee training much easier. For example, when training an employee on our grills, we aren’t necessarily training them how to grill, but instead how to execute a system perfectly using clearly outlined steps.

Pivot to survive

Small business owners must stay agile and handle life’s curveballs by pivoting their business when necessary.

Pivoting can take many forms. For us, it meant embracing pickup and drive-thru orders during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when dining rooms were closed. Many of our customers’ preferences shifted during that time, so we continue to offer this order format today.

Considering the needs of your customers and receiving their feedback is important to your success, as is listening to feedback from employees, who are on the front lines of interacting with patrons and receiving their comments.

Editor’s note: Ahmad Alatrash is co-founder of Mesquite Fresh Street Mex, which opened in 2015 as a walk-up taco stand and has grown to 10 brick-and-mortar locations across the Valley. Please send your comments to AzOpinions@iniusa.org. We are committed to publishing a wide variety of reader opinions, as long as they meet our Civility Guidelines.