Building Sales With a Contest

Of course as an operator you can’t do it all on your own.  If your goal is to drive sales, you have to enlist the help of your sales team…also known as your front end staff.  Why not have a sales contest from time to time?  Choose an item that you want to sell [...]

Appreciation + Happy Employees = Great ROI

Here is a link to a great article about how easy it is to increase sales and profits – just by making sure your employees feel appreciated. According to Chester Elton in his book The Carrot Principle, the research firm of Watson Wyatt asked employees of a certain company to identify “very significant” motivators for [...]

When I Find Time

Do you ever hear yourself say “I’ve got to find time to do some marketing this week?”
And then the week comes and goes and you didn’t find one second to work on it?
You need to look at marketing the same as you do the rest of your business.
What would happen if you didn’t find time [...]

The Very Best Way to Build Sales in Your Restaurant

Get out of your office.
That’s right.  During peak periods you should be interacting with your customers – shaking hands and kissing      babies.  This is your time to build relationships with the folks that pay your salary.   Make them feel important, learn their names, become their friends, set a great example for your staff.
If you do [...]

Don’t Spend a Penny on Marketing Until You Do This

Before you even think about marketing and advertising your restaurant consider this:  What kind of experience are your new found guests going to have once they arrive at your restaurant.  If you are not ready to WOW them – save your marketing dollars – invest  in a scrub brush, a gallon of paint, a new [...]

Free Personality Test – For You and Your Staff

Sometimes understanding who you are helps who you need to become – or where you need to be.
In the late 90’s, while taking a finance class in Texas, I was given my first ‘personality’ test.  It was a well known Meyers-Briggs test, consisting of pages and pages of questions.  The next day, as we were [...]

8 Ways To Be Efficient NOW!

There are many – but here’s today’s!
1.  Know your target market or niche.  It’s very important that you have your target clearly defined so you aren’t wasting your time doing activities that will not produce the results you’re looking for.  When you have a clearly defined niche, it’s easier to craft marketing messages, materials [...]

Yes – The Customer is Always Right

Oh, how we love compliments – about our food and our service and what a wonderful evening everyone had.  But are we just as gracious when confronted with a unhappy customer?
Seth Godin has a great post about how to respond to negative feed back.  In it he explains how simple it is  to disarm an [...]

7 Things To Do When Business Is Slow

When things are slow with your business, you can take the opportunity to do all those things you always wanted to do but never had the time for.

Attend your chamber of commerce meetings
Visiting networking groups as a guest BNI (business networking international) is a great [...]