TECH: Using Modern Technology for Sports Bar Marketing
Here's three ways restaurant operators can use modern restaurant technology to improve their sports bar marketing efforts and heighten the guest experience.
DID YOU KNOWS…
Thanksgiving Drinking Guide
Turkey Day is coming and with it – lots of drinking. VinePair created this fun little infographic to help you figure out what your booze of choice should be this holiday season.
Be a Slacker
Domino’s unveiled a new pizza ordering app for Slack, making planning & ordering group lunches a bit easier. Slack is a work messaging app used for coworkers to communicate to one another. Users can message Domino’s directly to place their pizza order. Domino’s is fond of trying new ways of taking orders – such as via Twitter – and often describes itself as technology company.
Kiwi Ban
UK supermarket ASDA Hulme is temporarily banning the sales of kiwis to anyone under the age of 25. Apparently fans of One Direction (a pop band) have been throwing the fruit on stage when they perform their hit song “Kiwi.” One of the members slipped on a kiwi that was tossed on stage.
SHALLOW POOL
Why it matters to you: More tension in the labor pool isn’t welcome.
The overall unemployment rate dropped to a 17-year low at just 4.1% nationally. While that hasn’t spelled significant wage increases, it has made an already difficult hiring environment even harder for restaurant operators nationwide. These numbers are impacted by the rebound after the hurricane disruptions of the past couple of months. Restaurants delivered 88,000 of the 261,000 new jobs that were added in October, which still leaves the industry down about 10,000 jobs from the high in August.
The takeaway here is simple: Our industry continues to grow points of distribution despite the sales declines we have seen, and labor costs don’t appear to be coming down anytime soon. As an operator, your challenge is finding the balance of quality people at a price your P&L can endure.
We have been calling this climate the War for Talent for a reason. The competition is so fierce for the few qualified people that you can’t make even little errors in your process. That’s why, we strongly encourage all of our subscribers to revisit all of their recruiting, interviewing and selecting systems to makes sure they aren’t bringing in someone that won’t last, and put your best people in the right spot to succeed.
PLAYING POLITICS
Why it matters to you: Put culture before dogma for a health work environment.
Leaders lead. It’s been a theme we have pushed on The Daily Rail since its inception. That couldn’t be more-true today with the current political climate coupled with the spotlight being shone on sexual harassment. Understanding the impact that people with minority opinions can experience is as important as giving praise to your team or ensuring a safe work environment. According to Paul English, founder of Kayak and Lola, the key to a happy work atmosphere is a policy that protects everyone from discomfort.
We have no less diversity of opinion in our industry as the tech world, and we can learn from English’s efforts to clarifies the Dos & Don’ts in his own. He suggests you start by listening to your team, being the role model for behavior, and put culture first. By taking these steps you can foment an environment that allows folks with differing opinions to thrive based on their work performance and not their politics.
We would strongly encourage you to spend a little energy listening to the conversations that are happening in your kitchen and service alley to take the temperature of your team. Only by doing this will you learn how they feel and then you can respond as a leader should.
