SALES: 3 Fun Ways to Drive Restaurant Sales During Football
You may have heard, but football ratings are way down. Since most of our subscribers rely on football to deliver relief from an all too slow summer, this is really bad news. Although, it doesn’t mean you don’t have weapons to combat the fading NFL ratings and their impact on your sales. Maybe it’s time to see the traffic softening as an opportunity to be more creative in your efforts and increase check averages.
DID YOU KNOWS…
Three Cars Every Minutes
In an amazing feat of speed and efficiency, a Kentucky Chick-Fil-A drive-thru somehow manages to serve three cars every minute. In fact, they broke their drive-thru record by serving 178 cars in one hour. That’s a ton of chicken and probably a ton of happy customers.
Tiger Woods Clinches 80th PGA Tour Title
Five years and four back surgeries after his last PGA Tour victory, Tiger Woods capped off his remarkable return to form this year with his 80th PGA Tour win at the Tour Championship on Sunday. After years of struggling with private problems and career-threatening back injuries, even Woods and his biggest supporters had started to doubt whether the world’s most (in)famous golfer would ever return to the form that saw him shatter record after record in the late 1990s and early 2000s. But his last straw, a spinal fusion surgery performed in April 2017, finally alleviated the back pain and marked the beginning of an unlikely comeback.
Do You Spit or Swallow… Toothpaste?
Brushbox, a toothbrush subscription company (apparently that’s a thing), caught some heavy flack after distributing beer coasters showing a close-up of a woman’s mouth drooling toothpaste on one side and the reverse side using the phrase “spit or swallow.” The coasters were distributed at the University of Sussex. Yikes. Not exactly the best idea of advertisements. Also, who swallows toothpaste?
OLD DOG, NEW TRICKS
Why it matters to you: Embracing new technology requires a commitment to training.
Our industry is exploding with new technologies. Most of you can’t even open a browser window without some retargeting ad screaming that you need the latest restaurant tech widget. We have certainly advocated that you embrace these technologies or lose your edge. Popular logic says that the rank & file staff in most restaurants are Millennials and those folks demand new and better technology as a part of their employment. But maybe you are a bit older than your team and all this stuff is too much to process.
Then we would submit you have a training problem and not a technology one. Start with the realization that different generations of folks learn at differing rates and with differing styles. Take accounting firm EY (previously Ernst & Young). They have been spending heavily in the expansion of technology and the commensurate training it provides. Their key to success is they offer multiple paths to learning new technology. Some thrive in a classroom setting, others need a more one on one approach. There is some clear insight here.
If you are considering a new technology make sure you that the company has real training resources and infrastructure. You should demand it. If you are paying a third party for a service, then hold them accountable on its successful implementation and be mindful of the various ways your team may learn. The story here is we all learn differently and it’s your job as the leader to accommodate them all.
[Source: Fortune]
OPENTABLE, UNDER SIEGE
Why it matters to you: OpenTable dominates the reservation landscape, but will that last?
OpenTable is 20 years in the making. Yes, 20 years. During that span we have seen the explosion of email as a method of communication, a major tech bubble (2001), the invention of the smartphone, the rise of social media and four presidents. And yet OpenTable, bought by Priceline for $2.6 BN in 2014, still dominates the reservation landscape. However, will that last forever?
There are several factors that play into both OpenTable’s dominance and their vulnerability. They own the segment by sheer brand recognition. Their systems are easy to use and simple to implement. However, they are also very expensive compared to say Resy. One restaurant chain went from a varying amount that averaged $1000/month on OpenTable to $89/month flat on Resy. That is a factor that no operator can ignore. If you can drop over $10,000 to the bottom line with a quick switch it will happen… or will it?
Once key competitive advantage is the national presence that OpenTable has built. For example, Resy only had 10 restaurants in Dallas, but OpenTable has hundreds. As it turns out, OpenTable’s local search feature is a strong motivator for users. On the flip side, Resy is more selective in their placements and as a consequence, claim to be only delivering great choices for their diners. Either way, we would assert it can’t hurt to take a peek at your reservation system investment and make sure it’s working for you and not the company who provides it.
[Source: Eater]
