New Year’s Revolutions
With the festive season truly behind us and 2017 promising some speed bumps to your business, we at Floodlight are offering a New Year’s Revolution guide to kick start your year and keep your business growing in the right direction.
After the decorations are back in their dusty spot back of house and the Christmas tree is in the bin, it’s very easy to move forward and look forward – forgetting to debrief yourself and your team about the Festive period.
A great idea (if you haven’t already) Is to create a festive folder. Things like the Christmas menu, Order amounts / par stock levels and bookings details of those great customers who spent heaps are invaluable when you start looking at December 2017.
Look in the mirror and ask yourself…
- Did our December meet, exceed or miss our expectations?
- What were the contributing factors to how business went?
- How did each part of the business run – floor, bar, Kitchen? Did everyone cope or were there issues?
- Are we up or behind on last years festive period?
- What do we need to do for the rest of the financial year to hit our targets?
A great way to do this is to pull up your sales data from Floodlight focus and spend a few minutes checking out which items really drove your business, and most importantly what was the gross profit on your sales?
Make notes and file in the festive folder, it’ll refresh your memory later in the year.
Touch your customers
A great way to ingratiate your business in the minds of those customers old and new is to hold a small ‘thank you’ event and invite all those people who booked events, or simply your regular or favoured guests to pop back in for a glass of bubbles (from your leftover stock) and a snack.
It doesn’t have to be a big deal and if an event is not possible even just a card or at very least an email will put you ahead of your competitors when they come to look for venues next year.
Back Office Blues
At this time of year it’s also very easy to get bogged down with back office paperwork and catching up after the Festive break. Now is the time to get out onto the floor and ‘table touch’ work a few evening shifts or early mornings – reconnect with your customers and your team, ask questions and ask how people’s holidays were – your customers, your team and your business will thank you for it!
If you are short on time our new App – ‘Pulse’ should help. Available to download from the Apple IOS store or the Android store, Pulse is a neat addition to our Floodlight business management tool and allows you to check on how things are running and your profit / cost figures from your phone or tablet
All systems go
This time of year is great to check in with your Managers, Chefs and supervisors, especially since they may well have had a break and are fresh and energised.
Involving them by updating your Floodlight dashboard to send the weekly reports out to your management team can prove invaluable as everyone then knows how the business is running and what needs to be done to control costs.
Floodlight reports demonstrate to managers how they might need to control their rosters more effectively and Chefs and bar managers can see which items are selling and make sure GPs are accurate and wastage and costs are kept to a minimum.
Party time
If you avoided the soggy snag and had a Christmas Cracker it might be time to plan an event for your team. Saying thank to your guys is one thing, but being able to take them out for a meal or a few drinks goes down well with everyone and improves morale after what could have been a very tough time for all.
By sticking to your New year’s resolutions and using Floodlight to improve your business you could turn 2017 into one of the best years yet!