Local Marketing is your Trump Card
In the competitive restaurant industry, it can be easy for a local restaurant to get lost in the shuffle. However, there are inventive ways to make your establishment stand out from the crowd. Local store marketing provides many opportunities to attract loyal business from your local community. If done properly, it can be your trump card over the competition.
Marketing and advertising can be expensive, especially if you don't understand what you're doing. It is easy to fall into the trap of following the crowd. You see others running advertisements in the metropolitan newspaper or running television spots, so you think you have to do it in order to compete. That's not the best use of your advertising dollars.
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 The Answer is In-HouseThe economy has certainly had its downs this quarter. And next quarter may indeed equate to continued slower sales for many businesses. So, to counter act this one-two punch from a lagging consumer base, I want you to consider working harder on a very easy in-house solution - email recruitment.
The answer has been in your own backyard for a long, long time. The fact that you can collect an infinite amount of people that have proven to buy from you is a garden worth watering. Look at it this way, would you want to spend your promotional dollars speaking to 5,000 strangers or 5,000 customers who have volunteered to receive your ads?
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Would You Call This Theft?
Theft is pretty clear. It is taking someone else's property without permission. In the hospitality industry, however, the definition of theft seems to depend on who is doing the defining! Is it theft to over-pour in order to get a better tip? What about over-pouring for visiting staff from other restaurants and bars, or giving them a free drink? What about having a staff drink after close on an exceptionally busy night? What about keeping any overages when counting the cash at the end of the night? Staff drinks? Use of "open keys" on the POS system to save time?
We seem to be afraid to talk about this problem. Most operators refuse to believe that their staff would steal. Yet we know that virtually every bar gives up more than 20 percent of their sales to illicit freebies, over-pouring and, yes, theft. That fact alone suggests that a bar owner who doesn't acknowledge a significant amount of theft is ignoring reality and making a lot less money as a result.
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