2 Quick Tips to Crush Your Restaurants Fears
I love talking with restaurant owners through social media. Over this past year, I discovered the 2 deepest secrets that most restaurant owners fear:
1. Keeping staff motivated, consistent, and happy.
2. Getting or maintaining a repeat customer base.
We can view this from 2 different business viewpoints: Operations and Marketing. Here are 2 quick tips to kiss these fears goodbye, forever.
1. Jump Start Your Operations
Your daily operations involve cleaning the line, ordering food, sweeping floors, rolling silverware, and stocking the bar. These are things you rely on your staff for assistance. Keeping them motivated, consistent, and happy is the heart of your business.
Daily operations also falls into the category of consistency. Your food must be consistent. I cannot stress the importance of this factor. How would you feel about a restaurant where the food is hit or miss? Would you constantly go back?
A lack of consistency brings bad reviews, kills motivation, and makes your staff unhappy for multiple reasons (lack of tips, constant server/kitchen bickering, complaining customers, over comp meals, etc).
It takes planning…
Without proper planning, your restaurant will fail. You need to lay out ALL operations in written charts so every staff member understands their duties. Structure the charts in the form of check lists. Post them directly in your kitchen so they are highly visible for quick reference. This should also include how-to pictures for line cooks. Have your manager run down the check list before each staff member can clock out. Nothing should be left for interpretation.
Planning = Success = Happiness
Yes. Your staff will complain at first. As humans, we drag our feet to make changes. But once the new routine is learned, we all reap the benefits. This begins with solid planning for daily operations.
On a side note, don’t be an a-hole to your staff. In general, most restaurant workers have fun with their jobs. Present the new operations manuals and standards in a fun way. Help and reward them.
2. Marketing is Dead, Sort Of…
From a traditional standpoint, yes…but successful marketing is not dead, just different. The game has changed.
What is successful marketing?
You are a restaurant. Your in the hospitality industry.
Since when did radio ads, tv commercials, billboards, or print ads demonstrate hospitality to your customers? Talking to people is your business. Traditional advertising helps promote awareness, but is it a successful marketing strategy?
No.
You need to engage your community. Get local and focus on who lives in your city. That is why the internet is a PERFECT platform for restaurant marketing. Not to mention, traditional advertising is outrageously expensive. Stop believing MORE ads = MORE customers. Get out there and start actively building relationships!
What does it mean to “Engage the Community?”
By engage, I mean talk to them. Get online where most of your consumers are. Be active on local forums, Twitter, Facebook, blogs, etc. This is branding from a hospitality standpoint. Local restaurants survived for decades by engaging people in their small communities. The internet has made that process simple.
Remember: you are building a local community of die-hard patrons. These patrons will assure the success of your business. Actively meet them without shoving countless ads down their throats.
As restaurant owners/managers, what do you guys fear? What are your concerns? How do you handle Operations? Marketing? Leave your comments below!
Tags: marketing, operations, restaurant, restaurant owner concerns, restuarant marketing
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