So you’re passionate about food – I get it! Somewhere in your wonderful journey of food and coffee, you turned your passion into a business – a restaurant, cafe or franchise.
What a great opportunity – to pursue your passion of food and be your own boss.
Somewhere between getting a restaurant design, buying commercial food equipment and analysing a shopfitter’s quote, you realised that numbers matter.
There’s a common saying among entrepreneurs – revenue is vanity, profit is sanity.
There is a lot of power in this statement.
Today I’ll cover Revenue – this is your income. Not the money in your pocket – that’s profit which comes later in the equation. I’ll cover that in another blog article.
Revenue is how much you sell. It’s the money that comes into the company via sales. Revenue (sales / income) is a great number to focus on with the team – but it’s only part of the picture to create a successful food business.
You can ‘sell’ a million dollars in meals yet wonder why you are still struggling to pay the staff wages.
Does this sound like you?
You need to know how much revenue must be achieved every week to run your business.
Get focused. Ask your bookkeeper to help you analyse a weekly sales ‘target’ that everyone in your team can understand. Then get creative with the team to develop incentives and ideas on how to measure the targets on a daily basis. Your team will get excited to see the numbers grow every day, so get them motivated and involved. It’s true that what gets measured gets done.
How to Measure and Motivate Daily Sales with Your Team
- Put a scoreboard on the coldroom door and update it daily. Get the staff involved so they can help you hit the target and see it grow.
- Get a large rum bottle (an empty one) and mark daily increments on the side with a marker. Each day, top up the bottle with a coloured liquid that measures the daily sales achieved, with the aim of reaching the top by the end of the week.
- Fill a large jar with delectable expensive chocolates as the daily numbers grow. Then share them with the team at the end of the week.
- Empower everyone to be a salesman. Create sales teams and start a competition.
- Team up the front of house with the back of house to compete for sales goals. Split them into pairs or groups. Keep a chart of their progress so everyone feels included and involved. Create a game that encourages teamwork between the different stations which in turn increases communication and encouragement; which will increase sales.
It sounds childish, I know. But that’s the point… and it works. Turn it into a game or theme to bring some fun to the fast-paced environment you work in. I’d love to hear any other ideas you have implemented in your business.
It’s fascinating how a team will pull together to chase a common achievement.
Give everyone a reward if they hit the sales target. You might convert the coloured water in the rum bottle into REAL top shelf rum and share it with the team to say thanks.
It might be a simple target eg: 3,000 coffees per week. Or upsell of 300 side dishes of Greek salads. If a supplier has given you a great discount on wine this week, train your wait staff to upsell that wine at every opportunity… from the moment a diner walks in!
Turn your numbers into conversations that your team can work with and understand.
Pick one target and do it well so you aren’t overwhelmed.
So many times over the years, I’ve seen an excited chef throw open the doors to his humble kitchen and end up working 100 hour weeks just to make ends meet because he didn’t track his numbers.
Find a bookkeeper who believes in you and your food passion, and can help you understand your numbers.
Contact Restaurant Bookkeepers Australia now for more ideas.
