Three Ways to Sharpen Your Restaurant Business Plan

Here you stand at the crossroad of a new start-up or expansion of your restaurant, and the challenge of raising capital lies comes down to one thing: a solid business plan.

After all, no funding means no restaurant.

But the good news is that whether you are currently undertaking a business plan (or will in the near future), here are three easy ways to sharpen your plan and increase your chances of securing investment.

1) Quantify, Quantify, Quantify

Most business plans are filled with general statements like, “The restaurant has seen steady growth since its opening three years ago.” This is fine and shows your growth, however a better way to write this statement is to quantify it:

Annual restaurant sales have increased 42 percent over the past three years.

With just a quick trip to your calculator you now communicate that you know your numbers, which adds a heightened level of trust to your reader. But don’t stop just at revenues – go through your plan and include numbers wherever possible:

“Mr. Smith was restaurant manager in his previous position.”

“In his past position as restaurant manager Mr. Smith supervised a team of 10 staff, where his responsibilities included …”

“The restaurant has steady sales.”

 “The restaurant maintains an average daily sales of $350.”

“Mexican cuisine is a rapidly growing industry.”

“Mexican cuisine restaurants generated $X million in the U.S. last year and are projected a further 4.2 percent growth over the next five years.

Quantifying your business makes you more knowledgeable and trustable in the eyes of an investor, thus increases your chances of receiving funding.

2) Highlight Your ‘Commercial Viability’

Your job as a restaurateur is to have passion for your menu. Every reader wants to hear the story of your restaurant and the delicious unique flavors you will serve. However, the biggest mistake most restaurant owners make is too much focus on these details – such as your décor and location and menu – and too little focus spent on the restaurant’s commercial viability.

Every investor or bank loan manager is asking themselves whether or not your restaurant will make a solid investment as they read your plan. Your job, therefore, is to leave them with a reassuring “yes.”

But don’t just say it – prove it.

• Show where trends are moving in the right direction for your business.
• Show what gap you are filling in the market.
• Show a solid marketing plan that backs up your revenue projections.

Imagine what details you would want to hear if you were the investor, then include them.

The reader should walk away from your plan feeling that your restaurant is a rock solid investment opportunity – therefore this should be your central focus.

3) Passionate and Professional

All too often restaurant owners fall into two different camps when writing their business plan: overzealous or overly serious.

It’s a tough tightrope to walk for most people, especially if it is their first time writing a business plan. Many feel they must be professional, but then get too serious and sap the plan of all passion. Others go in the other direction and write with all passion, yet lose professionalism and credibility along the way.

The secret of course is to convey both passion and professionalism.

Don’t be afraid to show your passion: Every investor and bank manager wants to see your passion and excitement for your restaurant. Passion means commitment, which will get you through the difficult times that lie ahead.

But present a professional document with hard numbers: If someone is going to invest $500,000 into your business they need to see a solid plan with solid numbers. Your loan manager’s neck is on the line when they sign off, so your business plan is the insurance policy that she’s made a solid investment decision.

Passion with professionalism is the magic combination for an effective restaurant business plan.

Three Ways to Sharpen Your Restaurant Business Plan posted first on happyhourspecialsyum.blogspot.com

Should You Add Spanish to Restaurant Job Descriptions

According to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, 25.6 percent of restaurant workers in the U.S. are Hispanic or Latino. The majority of these workers occupy back of house positions such as line cooks, dishwashers, and bussers. Because back of house positions do not require the same level of English as front of house positions such as waiters and bartenders, back of house workers’ English ability varies. How can you make sure you effectively target Spanish-speaking candidates for your restaurant openings?

Add Spanish to your job descriptions.

Yes, it’s really that simple. You can opt to add a Spanish translation below your English job description. At the very least, you should include a line such as se habla español in your job description. Adding Spanish in your job descriptions not only extends the audience your job appeals to but also makes Spanish-speaking candidates feel welcomed and comfortable. If you have a Spanish speaker on your staff, you should let candidates know that a member of your team can communicate with them in Spanish.

There is a large disconnect between the language of back of house positions and the demographic of back of house workers. The majority of back of house positions are occupied by Spanish speakers while very few back of house job descriptions include any Spanish. Although English language ability is required in most customer-facing jobs, it’s not a necessity to perform the primary job functions of back of house staff.

You can access a large pool of qualified Spanish-speaking candidates by simply adding some Spanish to your job descriptions. If you’re having trouble filling back of house positions for your restaurant, consider adding Spanish to your job descriptions. You may be surprised to find how many more applications you’ll receive from such a small change.

Should You Add Spanish to Restaurant Job Descriptions posted first on happyhourspecialsyum.blogspot.com

The Right to Unlawful Assembly and Snagajob Helps Hurricane Recovery Process

Avoiding the Deep End of the Tip Pool: Using Transactional Data to Track Tips

Tracking tips can be a major stressor to restaurant operators. Luckily, this IRS-induced pressure can be a telltale sign of a business that’s moving in the right direction…especially when you are seeing a correlation between “big” tips and net new customers. But even the best & most honest employees may not be adept at tracking tips, so it’s more critical than ever to have an honest view of gratuity in your restaurant operation.

And these days, tipping within an individual location or across an entire chain is becoming a more heavily scrutinized practice. Over the past years, there’s been countless examples of class-action lawsuits where servers are filing for compensatory and punitive damages due to “mandatory” tip pools within their workplace. And just this past July, the Department of Labor set forth a plan to rescind the 2011 tip pooling regulation, which could be a boon for the service industry but potentially still lead to legal woes.

You need a complete view of tips within your restaurants. Not only will you benefit when you know which servers your customers love, but additionally a macro-view of tipping across an entire chain can serve as a source of truth if the data needs to be reviewed more intensely by your Accounting or Legal Departments.

Throughout my career, I’ve seen some of the best brands struggle with tracking gratuity but I’ve also seen some fantastic programs arise from proper tip tracking too. Here are the top three reasons why you need a robust tip tracking process.

Shining a Spotlight on the Positives

Which employees consistently receive remarkable tips from your customers? By isolating the stores & regions where customer service is transforming into monetary praise, you can know which managers should be rewarded for driving higher levels of success.

Too many times, I see tip tracking programs implemented with the intent of “busting bad guys” instead of journeying down a more positive road. HR, Marketing and Operations leaders can using tip reporting to highlight the employees creating a fantastic customer experience. See a server who is constantly being given large tips? Consider looking deeper into the customers who are leaving the tips, would they like to write an online review about dining at that specific location? Or maybe that server could potentially be a great “in-store” or regional customer experience trainer? 

Identify Training Opportunities and Tip Manipulation

Now, I’d be remised if I didn’t cover the most obvious benefit which is pinpointing incidents of real or accidental fraud. By focusing on larger trends within a specific location or region, you can start to discover the employees who may need extra training because their tips are being rung incorrectly or catch the employees who have developed a pattern of manipulating tip amounts.

The Chicken or The Egg Effect of Great Service

Are your servers great or is it because your loyalty program breeds unbridled customer happiness? Your C.O.O. and C.M.O. may have two different answers if you ask them in passing but when viewing tips across an enterprise, you can start to find some sweet spots where a strong program meets an even stronger personality. Do you know if the servers receiving the best (or worst) tips are also dealing with customers enrolled in your loyalty program or taking part in a promotion?

This is where the art of customer care meets the science of data analytics. By focusing on what “good” tipping looks like across various locations or regions, you can start to figure out what levers marketing should focus on pulling.

Take the Plunge

There’s many reasons to run a more efficient tip tracking program, these are just some of the benefits that I’ve seen, but when you are dealing with big data, the options are almost endless. Even if you don’t use your gratuity data in a standardized program, it’s still incredibly vital that you have a solution in place that lets you keep things moving smoothly and avoid swimming too close to the deep end of the tip pool.

Avoiding the Deep End of the Tip Pool: Using Transactional Data to Track Tips posted first on happyhourspecialsyum.blogspot.com

Keen on Kiosks and Online Ordering Preference of Parents

12 Psychological Tricks of Restaurant Menus

Have you ever looked at a menu and became absolutely entranced? The food selection may look so good that you don’t even look at the prices. That is exactly what is engineered to happen. A staggering amount of time and research goes into the creation of restaurant menus, and it isn’t just about aesthetics. Here are just a few ways that restaurants can enhance their menu using simple psychological tricks that add up to big bucks.

1. Less Is More

A well-designed menu will have a limited choice in each category. Studies have proven that the more options you give consumers, the more anxiety they feel. Keeping it simple will entice them to choose more quickly.

2. Nested Pricing

On older menus, you will see the line of dots leading to the end of the page where the price is located. This actually allows a customer to choose the cheapest option easily. Instead, successful restaurants now use nested pricing, where the price is directly after the item description. This puts the guest’s focus on the item rather than comparing prices.

3. Get Rid of Dollar Signs

Dollar signs on prices subconsciously remind the guest they are spending money. Instead of listing an item for “$12.00,” leave it at “12,” which puts the focus back on the food, rather than the price.

4. Using Negative Space

Our eyes are naturally drawn to areas of negative space, or where items are outlined. Put pricier items in a box or within a large negative space. Using this design tactic will draw a guest’s gaze and make it more likely that the high-value item is ordered.

5. Upper Right Is King

The upper right-hand corner of any menu is where you want your most sought-after items. People expect appetizers, soups, and salads to be on the top left. When a patron is hungry, they will automatically gravitate towards the upper right. Restaurants can use this to their advantage.

6. Decoy Items

Restaurants will often place an expensive decoy item next to others to make the other options look like a bargain. Not many people will order a $100 Wagyu filet, but it sure makes the $60 rib eye look more reasonable.

7. Description Means Quality

The better a restaurant describes an item, the better guests report the food tasting. Words can have an enormous impact in how a customer perceives a dining experience. Chocolate cake described as “Velvet Chocolate Cake” automatically increases desire for the item.

8. Family Memories

A popular psychological trick is to invoke feelings of nostalgia when naming an item on the menu. Customers may be more likely to order “Grandma’s Chicken Pot Pie” rather than “Joe’s Pot Pie,” only because it reminds them of a warm childhood memory.

9. Language Tricks

Using cultural words for specific dishes can make them seem of higher quality. For example, naming a dish “Blanco Queso y Carne” sounds much more appetizing than “White Cheese with Meat.” Taking the time to embrace the culture of a restaurant can certainly have a big pay off.

10. Wine Markup

Generally, most people don’t want to spend an arm and a leg on wine when they dine out. However, they don’t want to seem like a cheapskate either. Marking up the second least expensive wine is common practice in many restaurants. This allows the customer to feel as if they are getting a higher-quality product and the business achieves higher margin on their wine.

11. Secret Serving Sizes

Many restaurants keep their serving sizes a secret. When they offer a half or lunch-sized portion, it is kept intentionally vague. The half-sized is typically marked up slightly to entice a customer to order the full portion.

12. Highlighted Specials

When there is a particular dish that a restaurant is pushing to sell, it helps to have it highlighted as such, with a lot of negative space, as mentioned above. There may be a more in-depth item description that can help push higher-value items.

As you can see, there are a few small tricks that any restaurant can implement to provide a higher margin on food and drink, while increasing customer satisfaction.

12 Psychological Tricks of Restaurant Menus posted first on happyhourspecialsyum.blogspot.com

The Big Salad: Inspiring Students to ‘Seal the Deal’