Must Watch TV

Very few shows, other than maybe some cooking shows, will give you tips and tricks that are really worth spending that time it takes to watch the program.

You will be happily surprised to know that there actually are some newer shows that will give you business marketing Gold.

My current favorite find, is Jon Taffer's "Bar Rescue."

Each episode he has given away some fantastic ideas to squeeze more cash out of a restaurant or bar.

He usually takes many weeks to save a struggling business, while on the show, he does it in 5 days.

These businesses are days, maybe weeks away from shutting down. Mostly due to heavy debt and little hope if any chance of ever getting back into the black.

He has a consulting business and has 35 years of knowledge with "proven" success and recognition from his peers to add."Reaction Management Principles" is how he terms it.

I noticed he offers some downloadable "toolkits" for sale on his site. I haven't viewed any, but am tempted to grab one or more as I expect them to be as excellent as his TV show is.

He has a software offer a well for tracking your numbers.

Using the proper layout of a menu,like how to boost sales on premium items, how the bartenders should work the most effective and efficient way, how to design your floor for the best "flow" of patrons that make the most cash and much more.

Spending a few minutes watching him do his magic on TV, for free, will serve you well.

Just search for Jon Taffer to find him. He has several sites, so it is easy.

Other programs I've seen are Shark Tank, Pawn Stars, Storage Wars and American Pickers.

Each show offers great opportunity to see some powerful skills in action like sales, negotiation, haggling,handling stress with class and more.

Personally I really enjoy these shows as I used to do a great deal of antiquing and rummaging.

Finding hidden gems at a great bargain is great fun.

Fire up your TV for a few of these shows. You too might be glad you did.

Sure beats the normal time wasting programs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Put Some Warm Butts in Those Empty Seats

Looking at your spreadsheet, a HUGE gaping hole is obvious every Tuesday nights.

It is so bad that you are considering closing for that night.
You're not making any money, in fact Tuesdays are losing you money.
A LOT.

Turn it around.

Make Tuesday night a Member's Only event.
To get into the restaurant that night,you must have a VIP card, which costs money, not a freebie.

Have a limited number of memberships available.
Have a waiting list.
Dinners can only get a card if they have dinned "x" number of times in the restaurant on other days, or spent a certain amount of money overall.
Or...you dream up something better :)

Analyze where you are wasting advertising money.
Oh, if you don't have a system tracking where your advertising dollars return the best value, then stop it! Put a system in place where you can know EXACTLY how your customers are finding you.

Of course spend a lot of time considering what your Tuesday nights will look like.
Special menu items, drink specials, VIP services,buffet, all-you-can-eat?
Karaoke, DJ, Dance contest,Improve night, open mic, talent show, Gong show?
Contest winner get's their VIP card paid for or something similar. The prize must be something they get IN the restaurant, NOT something you don't control.

Check with your vendors and work out a special pricing on the food items for that night's supply.

Reminder: you have started to capture those emails and addresses from EACH guest aren't you?

Are You Hoping that Customers Will Return or Do You Absolutely KNOW They Will?

A family just finished eating at your restaurant, paid their bill and left.

Do you suspect that they will come back another time to spend money at your place?
Are you "hoping" they will or are you 100% Positive that they will.
Are you certain enough to actually bet money that they will return again?

If you're like most owners, you have no clue if they will return.
Sure, sometimes you hear remarks from visitors that they ate there once before or maybe a friend suggested that they try your food. What percent return? How often?

If you aren't taking steps to track these things and implementing procedures to ensure returns you are passing up on huge revenue. NOT smart.
Repeat sales make you rich not one time visitors.

Are your servers and other staff making the guests feel like Kings and Queens who are glad and feel lucky to have found you?
If not, again you're missing out on Gold($)

There are probably hundreds of ideas you could test to improve sales.
One excellent way is to simply make certain extra effort is made to capture your customer's data. Names, phones, emails, ages, where they live and other data.

Getting that data could be easy or hard, your choice.
If you have the thought in your mind that the visitors will not be willing to offer that information, then expect it to be like pulling teeth without any pain killer.

Make it fun, make it easy and make sure they get some kind of reward for supplying that precious information.

Have your place secret shopped.
Have a friend,that your staff has never met before, go through your restaurant's experience.Then have them report honestly how they liked the visit.

A better method, although it will cost money, is to hire a person that is a professional secret shopper
They will have a much better idea on what to watch for, better observation methods and will provide you with a very detailed report on their experience.

Don't you dare use any information you collect as reason to fire or even chastise any staff. The procedure is to improve you business not make you staff fearful.

Do you have a detailed written dialog that the staff are supposed to follow when they greet customers or are they just winging it?
Be smart and develop a written dialog.
Test and tweak it until it flows easily and works like crazy.
Demand that staff follow the dialog as well. NO freelancing allowed.

Are add-ons being offered each and EVERY time?
And are they offered with flair or does it sound like wait staff are reading a laundry list.

You should have dialog expressing how wonderful your food is and deliver those messages by the staff with exuberance.

Each and every wait staff can become mini "Super Sales" men and women.
If your food is not such that one can get excited about, then maybe you should consider not even having those items on the menu.
Who wants bland anything?
Offer foods that the guests must come to you to obtain.
Make them glad that they went out to eat, instead of dinning at home.
I suggest you spend some serious time looking at you menu selection.
Drop the slow movers. Add some premium choices. Add some Pizzazz.

A WEEKLY training on this should be happening, with out fail.
Please take these steps to improve.
Add some role playing in how to handle minor troubles too.
Unreasonable customers should be handled with care.
If you serve alcohol you better know how to handle drunks.
Schedule these training sessions as soon as possible.

Make it fun for the staff, make them glad they have you as a boss and they actually look forward to coming to work for you.
You don't have to be their best friend, just don't be their worst boss.

If you have a business that is struggling right now and you are possibly depressed about it,toss out that hopeless attitude and get excited, for you can rescue a sinking ship

Please come back soon to read more ideas.

This topic alone would need hundreds of posts, but I want to discuss more general ideas.

A Fire Hose of Customer Leads, Proven Buyer in Fact for Pennies

What ever your business,what ever you're selling,it is almost certain you can find a list of people that already spent money on what you are selling.

You can find out how many bought and how much money they spent.
Do you wish to market to a specific age group only.
Or maybe only women in a certain zip code, or income level.

Using the internet for most communications, many people have forgotten the Gold available that can be found in purchased lists.

There are several sources of lists,but the best I feel is the Great SRDS(Standard Rate and Data Service).90 years of experience!
No, not cheap when compared to a hamburger, but when the success of your company is what is important, SRDS subscriptions are a bargain.

You can develop a list of prospects easily.
It can be crazy hard to find new customers, unless you know where to look.
The wisest thing is to go after people that have shown they are willing to spend money on what you have to sell.
It is almost as good as having one that bought from you already.

Not just for finding leads, but also studying the SRDS lists you can find out if you might be pricing your products either too high or too low.

Looking at one list about buyers of a weight loss product, I can see the average purchase is $50.I see 90% are female and I see there are 112,261 names on the list.
Knowing what my percent of sales per 100 people exposed to my offer, I can figure out if I can do a successful/profitable mailing.

Breaking even or even losing on the first mailing could still be wise if you offer supplements on a monthly subscription. Studying lists you might find even people are sticking with the program for 3-6 months.

Or you could research magazines. Knowing how many paid subscribers the magazine has could help you decide if placing an advertisement in that magazine makes sense.

Do yourself a favor and get subscribed to SRDS.
They are constantly updating their files for current customer data.

Current access fees are $750 per year.
Just do a search for them, they are easy to find.
I have no affiliation with them, just respect what they offer.

Taking Care of Your Own Health is Necessary to Succeed in Business

Business owners are notorious for being so dedicated to their work, due to loving what they do, that they often neglect their own health. By eating fast food too often, working insanely long hours, not exercising and maybe too much late night entertaining schmoozing prospects that they end up degrading their health.

Exercise is a great stress controller. Good food gives you proper nutrients to handle the higher stress.
Constant never ending stress of business challenges must be eased or you are surely looking for an early "forced" retirement due to traumatic health issues.

Health clubs work for many people. For some that membership card never gets used more than once or twice a month. Ideally you should have a fitness program that you don't have to drive 45 minutes each way just to do the training. In or near your home is ideal for the majority as it is just easier to do when you only need a few minutes.

Simple is best as it will be easier to stick with it.You don't even need any equipment.
Research "body weight exercise" or "whole body exercise" to see what is possible.
A simple 10-15 minute routine can do wonders to keep you fit.

You may laugh at this, but it works it you try it...lay down on your back and then stand up, first using your left side then get up using your right side. Then lay on your stomach and stand up, again one side then the other.
If you do just that for 10 minutes you will burn fat, tone muscles and feel good. The feeling good will not start the first day. You will need to get toned up at least a week or two to start feeling fitter and notice more endurance.

You can ramp up the work out by using what is called the Tabata Method.
It simply is a technique of working fast and hard for 20 seconds, then coast or rest for 10 seconds.

Do 8 cycles or "Sets" of that 20 and 10 pattern and you will be challenged. Most importantly you will achieve higher fitness in a faster time
and will minimum time needed to actually do the work outs.
Of course consult with your doctor before starting any exercise program to be sure you are up to it.

I you do a search online for "tabata clock" you can find free Timers that let you follow your Tabata Cycles without having to look at your watch. Some are online and some you can download onto your computer.
They work great as a motivation tool.Here is a free download version >>> Tabata Clock
Look on the left side navigation and follow the links to find a Windows, Linux, Mac or Mobile version.

As you obtain better fitness and endurance speed up the work out or then decide to try something new.
Do fun stuff! Hike, bike, tennis, basketball. Using weights in a gym gets old and boring pretty fast.

Your reclaimed energy will help you handle those daily business headaches with a smile instead of a scowl.

Be Everywhere to Have More of Page One

Getting your site to page one on Google is nice, but you could possibly Dominate or even Own the whole page if you take more action.
You can post videos and work to get them ranked, post images,articles, press releases, Tweets,Youtube.
Just putting up the site ain't going to cut it in today's highly competitive marketing world.

Get those all working for you and traffic will no longer be an issue.

Many would say that this is not new information, but few actually do it.
Small business people often don't budget to hire a full time web master, so they simply have a site built and then do nothing with it. "Build it and they will come" only works in Hollywood.
Being naive is not a crime,however it is a shame to not take advantage of available traffic.

Outsourcing your web site SEO or Social Media does not have to cost an arm and a leg.
With the high cost of traditional advertising in phone books and newspapers and their reduced effectiveness makes sense to spend that money elsewhere. On the Internet.

Skype Marketing is another hot one and I'll post on that soon.I will also mention a most effective tool to use to gather prospects for your offers by using Skype.

Then I'll post techniques to make FaceBook a traffic cash cow.

Goofy Looking Images Popping Up Everywhere Can Make You More Cash

Odd looking images that are popping up all over.
The are on magazines, soup cans, theater tickets,menus, T-Shirts and even Tattoos.
Adding them to your marketing toolbox is a wise idea.
These codes which are very common in Japan, where they were created by a Toyota subsidiary, Denso-Wave in 1994.
As the growth in use of "Smart-Phones" increases and as we move away from traditional print media and more toward Online Advertising, these codes will become even more common in the USA. AND more valuable to use in your marketing tactics.
Here is a sample from Wiki 

And you can learn more there too  Wikipedia on QR Codes

These codes work when a phone user simple points their phone at the image and if they have the proper software on the phone, the code can prompt the phone do several things. It can take you to a website, dial a phone number, send a SMS message, show a text message and others functions.
These can be placed on product in a grocery store and upon scanning the code more information can be given to the customer or maybe a secret coupon code can be given to them to use at the checkout.

These are now being used on Billboards, with the code being several feet high, so people can scan for more information or be sent to a web site with a video sales message.
QR Codes are also being place on the outsides of buildings also several feet high, to promote a new dress design or other offer.
These codes offer endless opportunities to get your brand in front of the eyes of consumers and in a very inexpensive way.
Take advantage of these NOW before these become too common. You can stand out in the crowd and be different which will get you more attention before they become too common and you get lost in the crowd.

Find a provider of web services to get you setup with your own QR Codes Marketing plan.
I personally can also provide ideas and services if you are so interested.

Another note, you can get free online storage from DropBox It is a handy place to put files you wish to share with others. You can put in a text file, pdf, Docs and others. If you "share" the folder with others, they then can also see what is inside the folder and open and view the files. Nice free service. If you need more space them you can subscribe for a small fee based upon how much more storage you need.