When you ask a restaurant owner what keeps him or her up at night, chances are that one of the worries is fleeing employees. In fact, the turnover rate in the hospitality sector remained at a whopping 70 percent in 2016 for the second consecutive year. When you work in a field notorious for turnover, … Continue reading 5 Innovative Ways to Invest in Your Staff
Where are your marketing dollars and hours going? If you’re like most restaurant owners, it’s to social media: More than 80 percent of restaurateurs spend at least part of their marketing budgets on social media, making it the top advertising vehicle, according to new research from online travel site TripAdvisor. While most people used to … Continue reading The Restaurateur’s Guide to Social Media Marketing
‘Tis the season to ring up sales, but smart Santas know that you can’t wait until the last minute to get your holiday marketing plans in order. Here are four simple holiday marketing must-dos that you can start planning now so you’ll be a step ahead when everyone else is consumed in the holiday crunch. … Continue reading 4 Holiday Marketing Must-Dos
Wouldn’t it be great if money appeared out of nowhere? If you didn’t have to work so incredibly hard to try to attract new customers, on a non-stop, frantic quest for sales? It turns out that there is a way to do this, and it’s the art of customer retention. This is where, as Harvard … Continue reading How Small Business Owners Can Supercharge Customer Retention
In recent months, we’ve witnessed several unintended consequences of minimum wage hikes in restaurants across the country. In my previous blog, I studied the emerging reports and how restaurants have been affected by these wage increases. What should you do about it? To remain profitable with rising workforce costs, you’ll need to adapt. Here’s how: … Continue reading 3 Ways to Protect your Restaurant Against Minimum Wage Increases
In my conversations with restaurant owners, I hear a lot of concern about the impact of minimum wage increases. Here’s a round-up of what the reports so far are indicating, and how you should be positioning your restaurant to not only survive these changes, but thrive. An industry already battle-scarred It hasn’t been an easy … Continue reading How the Minimum Wage is Impacting the Restaurant Business
The great promise of modern technology is how it saves time, builds efficiencies, and frees us up to focus on all the things that really matter in business and life. The drawback of technology is frequently complexity, and the many apparently similar choices out there. If you’re a retail store owner, restaurateur, or frankly anyone … Continue reading 4 Questions to Ask Before Investing in an mPOS
Small businesses today have an extraordinary chance to operate as intelligently as the biggest retail giants out there. Through the magic of digital marketing, all businesses can form close, personalized bonds with customers. But doing this well hinges on having an up-to-date, data-rich customer list. Your customer list is one of the most valuable marketing … Continue reading 6 Creative Ways to Use Your Customer List
High-end coffee shops are on the rise. The National Coffee Drinking Trends 2017 report states that “62% of consumers reached for a coffee within the past day… a level that hasn’t been seen since 2014”. The same report also points to 39% of younger customers who are drinking gourmet coffee. If you own a coffee … Continue reading How to Grow Your Coffee Shop’s Fanbase in 4 Easy Steps
The very nature of money is being disrupted—have you noticed? It’s shifting forms, becoming ever more virtual and 2017 is proving to be the landmark year where the disruption is playing out on a global scale. So what does this mean for your retail store as you plan for the future? Here are three key … Continue reading The Coming Cashless World—And What it Means For Your Retail Store
