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Profitable Restaurants
Howard Tinker • Sep 17, 2015
Running a Profitable Restaurant
Running a Profitable Restaurant is more than just having good food and good service. Here's why:
In fact, if that’s all you've got going for you, you are going to struggle. Because, in this country we have about 40,000 restaurants and places to eat and all of them would say they have ‘Good Food and Good Service’. So, what else is going for you? Why do people dine with you as opposed to your competition? That is one of the things you have to find out and then promote. If you can’t think of anything that you have going for you other than the good food and service, a great place to start is by asking your clients and they will tell you why it is that they come to you, what they like and love about you. As well as thinking about selling another plate of food or putting another bum in a seat at a table, think about other ways that you can make money from your restaurant and how to make your restaurant more than just about good food and service.
Here are some of the things you could develop:
- Be part of the community - help schools, associations and groups to raise money.
- You can sell retail produce; make your own produce.
- Sell t-shirts, calendars, menus, etc from your restaurant.
- Run cooking schools.
You can do lots and lots of different things to bring that money into your restaurant and make it more than just about good food and service. Many in your community will come to you for other reasons. Profitable Restaurants are more than just good food and service; and they use many different marketing strategies to build their restaurant community.Hopefully you find these tips useful and I look forward to seeing you soon and hearing your thoughts on our blog.
Take Aways:
- The days when good enough was good enough are GONE!
- When 40,000 others are competing for your clients what else is GREAT about you?
- What else can you use your facilities for – “More than Food and Service!”
Want to know more about marketing your restaurant? Book in for a quick, no-obligation chat with Howard by clicking the button below.
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As a marketing consultant who specializes in helping restaurant owners grow
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too.
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Cup.
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bearing in mind that this might push a few buttons. I'm sure that some
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on…" But that doesn't really matter when it comes to having a great
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Make sure you link all of your restaurant marketing channels.For example, when you send out an email make sure you put your website and social media links in it; and, make sure those links work and take the recipient directly to those channels.
Emails come from real people not from businesses? So send them from a real person to a real person! When you send out an email from your company, make sure that it comes from a person.
Goldfish Bowl Draws are a simple and effective way to collect data for your database. People drop their business cards into the fish bowl, you draw a card out once a month or once a week and you give away a prize.
Attracting repeat business is something I talk about a lot. Of the 4 Ways to Grow Your Business, it is the second way and it's incredibly important. One way to get repeat business (and also new business) is via 'smart' sponsorships.
Running a Profitable Restaurant is more than just having good food and good service. In fact, if that’s all you've got going for you, you are going to struggle.
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There are lots of ways for you to run Wine Events - work with the wine supplier, work with a particular brand, work with a winery.You could do something fun and inventive like a 'wine battle'.
Last night was the NSW Good Food Guide Awards and as usual our clients were amongst the awards...
Here's an inventive way to get people into your restaurant. If you have an off-premises license where people can buy and take the wine away, you can market to your list and pre-sell the wines from your wine list.
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This is a great new business strategy that is easy to run. Focus on your quiet nights and send out a 'Buy one get one FREE' invite to your top clients. Why your top clients?
Once you're collecting a database, you can start communicating with it. Talk to the people on your database as VIP Members and then run events where they are invited solely because they are a VIP Member.
If not, then you should! They're a really great way to make money for your restaurant. All you have to do is promote them on your website, in your bill-folds, in your restaurant; just let people know that you sell gift certificates.
If you are doing Wine Nights, start to segment your database for those people who come to wine events and create your own ‘Wine Club’.When people are dining in your restaurant, tell them about your wine club and ask them to join.
Some of the wineries are going through tough times right now so, why not get on the phone, ring the local wineries and see if they want to get involved with you and run wine nights? If they have their own database too, they can invite their customers to come to your restaurant.
I often talk about who you can partner with in business in your local area. If you have gyms within 3-5 Km of your restaurant, they will be attracting the same people who you want to dine at your restaurant.
We’ve all seen people taking photographs of meals and dishes in restaurants and it is a great opportunity for you to make use of this. One of the things we do is we use MyGuestlist, it is an electronic platform and within that you can run competitions.
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So I talk a lot about Joint Ventures and you'll have heard me talk about solicitors, accountants, stock brokers and hairdressers. What about local theatres? Theatres have mailing lists!
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