We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jeni Smith a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Jeni, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Coming up with the idea is so exciting, but then comes the hard part – executing. Too often the media ignores the execution part and goes from idea to success, skipping over the nitty, gritty details of executing in the early days. We think that’s a disservice both to the entrepreneurs who built something amazing as well as the public who isn’t getting a realistic picture of what it takes to succeed. So, we’d really appreciate if you could open up about your execution story – how did you go from idea to execution?

SliceAbility was created because we realize there is a very employABLE group of people living right here in our community who find it difficult to gain employment. We choose to celebrate the gifts and talents of our exceptional team of employees who have varing abilities and special needs. We dedicate ourselves to always paying special attention to the uniqueness of each and every one of our very employABLE teammates.

As the owner and creator of SliceAbility, I knew that restaurants are where most people start their journey in the working world. Restaurants offer an opportunity to learn fundamental skills that are relevant in all industries such as clocking in, requesting off, wearing the appropriate work uniform, working together with a team and completing the task at hand. For our team at SliceAbility we want to ensure the customers have a great experience eating a slice of something special at SliceAbility.

In addition to learning those fundamental skills, I realized that restaurants are a unique work environment that do not require everyone to be able to communicate with words. A lot of things that happen in the back of a restaurant require you to watch, practice, learn and eventually execute on your own. So in thinking about all these aspects of restaurant life, I knew that I could create a restaurant to teach the skills and offer a position on the team to the people in our community who others often spend more time thinking about what they can’t do than what they can.

It has been beautiful to see this group of 48 people who were filled with excitement and anticipation turn into a team who support and encourage each other.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I have a heart for teaching and helping people achieve their goals. When my husband decided to open a pizza restaurant I knew nothing about owning a restaurant, but quickly learned that managing employees was that different from my roots in education. I decided to contact the local school system and see if we could partner with them to host Community Based Vocational Instruction field trips and teach job skills in the restaurant.

While patnering with the schools, I realized that I had an opportunity to make an impact in our community. By combining the knowledge I had gained from owning a restaurant and being in the classroom as a teacher, I could create a a safe space for people of varying abilities to create a foundation in our workforce. There are so many transferrable skills that are taught in restaurants that can make a life long impact.

Any advice for managing a team?

I am most definitely a work in progress and not sure anyone needs any advice from me, but I think working as a team is the key to a succesful business.

Our team understands that we are there to make each other better. We have created a space where it is ok to say I need help. We have created roles that support the idea that there is always someone that is there to help. On any given day at SliceAbility you will find people in a variety of colored shirts or hats that represent their role on the team.

The people who were red shirts or hats are on the training team. This means they require support to complete their job successfully.

The people who wear the yellow shirts are on the Slice Squad. The Slice Squad has demonstrated a that they can complete their job independently or with little support. The Slice Squad is determined through observation and conversation about readiness and comfort level with their job.

The people on our team who wear the green shirts are the supervisors/job coaches. This is a team of leaders who will be available to mentor our training team and slice squad during their shifts. They work alongside their teammates to ensure success without doing the job for them but teaching them how to do it.

How did you build your audience on social media?

Once again, we are working to improve our social media presence, but I want the people to engage with our social media accounts to get to know our team and understand who we are. We are continually working to establish our brand and we are growning little by little.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.sliceability.com
• Instagram: sliceability
• Facebook: SliceAbility
• Other: linktr.ee/sliceability?