Brain food. Is your revenue good or bad?

Delivery, not your best friend. 

Although you have realized the importance of having good revenue as the center of your attention it can be quite hard to understand what’s creating it. Especially without having the right financial background many people struggle.  

First thing to focus on to create good revenue is having access to guest data, which will help you to identify your direct customers. This will further help you to create a positive margin contribution by using your guest data to understand which of your dishes to highlight and which to eliminate from your menu based on their criterias. 

When choosing a third-party delivery service, you are giving away all your guest ownership. And not just that, you are paying delivery services to give up your customer ownership. 

Does that sound like a good deal to you? 

Next time when you think about sales, try to think about if it will give you good or bad revenue.

“All the information that can say something about who visits your restaurant and what they prefer is super important for you to know. If you lose this information, for example by giving it away, it will be difficult for you to get a lasting and good revenue.”

If you have knowledge of who your visitors are and what they prefer, then you can eventually start setting up offers and loyalty programs based on this information. You can also use the information from your guests to create offers that can attract even more visitors, and start tailoring your marketing around what you know your guests appreciate the most.

Understanding your guests - get to know your regulars

Ask yourself these questions, how much do you know about your current customers? Do you recognise your repeating guests? 

The ideal outcome should be that you can greet your regulars by their first name and that you see a pattern for what’s being ordered at specific times. All the information that can say something about who visits your restaurant and what they prefer is super important for you to know. If you lose this information, for example by giving it away, it will be difficult for you to get a lasting, good revenue.

Own the relationship you have with your guests

Let's go back to the two questions from the intro that took you to this article; why good revenue is so important and actually more important now than ever. 

As we come out of covid it is important to understand how you are doing and what will have a positive impact for your future operations, not just to stay alive for now, but to stay around for the long run. Not all revenue is created equal and it's easy to choose options that are wrong, so that you are stuck with solutions that cause bad revenue without being fully aware. This can be anything that eats into your margin instead of giving you a better margin. Try to focus on choosing alternatives that contribute to the revenue you get from understanding your guests and their needs for direct sales. You would ultimately want to make sure your restaurant guests are so pleased with what you offer, that they want to come back to your place, which is revenue you can further build on since you then have loyal, returning visitors that want to have a direct relationship and connection with your restaurant.

Your restaurant will survive by you taking the right decisions with lasting results. It’s crucial that you know as much as possible about your guests and that you know how to use this information in the right way. Now it's the time to really love your restaurant. 

Next time we will focus on how to achieve good revenue through the benefits from direct sales.

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