There are many elements to consider when starting any business. In this article, we would like to share our experience of working with clients in the hospitality sector.
Over recent years, we have established a reputation for helping owners of restaurants and pubs to ‘Make the numbers work’.
Our Director, Noel Heaven, supports a number of clients in this sector and has a considerable working knowledge of how a hospitality business works.
From our teams experience of working with many start-up restaurants, as well as more established businesses, we consider the following to be the key considerations for success.
- Truly understand who is your ideal customer to focus your marketing activities
- Know how you differentiate your offering to add consideration value, including of course the food, but also the presentation & description, service, atmosphere & surroundings, front of house experience, effective complaint handling and the creation of desire with your marketing
- Create your online presence that attracts your prospective customers with a mobile friendly web site, blogging, enews and social media presence
- Have a way of collecting the contact details of your customers to build a database to encourage repeat business, make offers, ask for referrals
- Know your numbers. Not just your targets, but your KPI success drivers, your margin objective and service level agreements.
- Systemise your processes with an operations manual that creates a restaurant that works without you, maximises profitability and supports the actions of your team
- Manage the systems as well as the people (eg portion control). Remember you established the systems for a reason!
- Hire people to match and deliver your brand vision
- Identify your poor performers quickly and if they can’t develop, then let them go
- Implement a strong cash and stock control system to minimise losses
If you would like to discuss how we could support your hospitality business, then please call Noel on 01865 379272
