If you’re a restaurant manager or owner that’s looking to scale your business, it’s essential to develop a strategy for improving your operations. While increasing sales can help you boost your overall revenue, it’s also important to consider your profit margins. Successful restaurant owners focus on both revenue and costs – it’s the best way to compete with other restaurants in your niche.
In this blog, we’ll overview a five-pronged approach below that can increase your sales and improve profitability. Our comprehensive approach will help owners and managers enhance multiple elements of their restaurants.
How to Boost Restaurant Profits [Infographic]
Content Provided By: RF Technologies
Here’s 5 Ways to Increase Your Restaurants Sales
1. Staff
It’s critical to invest the time, money, and effort to ensure that your restaurant staff members are effective within your restaurant. As complacency steps in, standards can drop, and customer experience, food quality, and profit may suffer. By conducting surprise audits on staff, you can ensure standards are consistently met.
Cross-training your staff to increase competence in multiple roles will also have monetary benefits. If someone is sick or on vacation, you can be confident other staff members can fulfill roles without time-consuming training.
While staff output, competence, and standards are critical, it’s also important to retain talented employees. Make sure that you foster an enjoyable working environment that adequately compensates hard work. The cost of staff turnover and retraining is much higher than many business owners realize.
2. Food
Food is one of the primary costs associated with running a restaurant. If you’re currently experiencing profitability issues, you may be serving uneconomical portions. It’s essential to find food portions that offer value to customers without breaking your bank balance.
If you’ve used the same restaurant food suppliers for years, you may be overpaying for your stock. You should request quotes from competitors and inform your supplier if you’ve found cheaper alternatives – they may be willing to reduce your current bill. If not, changing to another food wholesaler might be your best option.
It’s also critical to crack down on theft. Stock inventory trackers can help you identify potential food theft. This is critical if you’re operating on small margins.
Reducing food waste is another critical element to consider. By analyzing your average food usage and incorporating expiration dates, you can find an optimal amount of food to order. It’s essential to order just enough food to keep your menu full.
3. OPS – Operations
Employing strong operational standards can help you avoid unnecessary waste. In order to improve your operations, it’s critical to audit every component of your business. By understanding your costs, you’ll be well-positioned to reduce total expenditure. Quality software for restaurant management can help with this process and provide other features to help boost your bottom line.
For example, understanding the profitability of your different ingredients and menu items can help you eliminate items that drain your profit margins. Keeping alcohol well-monitored can reduce theft and expensive waste. And assessing the cost of electricity, laundry, and other business expenses can help you target meaningful reductions in your variable costs.
4. Tech
Technology can make or break your restaurant business. As the hospitality industry grows increasingly competitive, it’s more important than ever to use the latest technology to improve your efficiency.
One of the primary technological advances to consider is modern POS software. By upgrading your restaurant point of sale system with one of the big brand name systems on the market, you can drastically improve your business’s capabilities and efficiency. You’ll be able to offer more to both customers and staff.
Let’s take a look at some advantages associated with modern POS software:
- Tableside ordering
- Inventory management
- Accounting integration
- Staff scheduling
- Online orders
- Table reservations
- Order tracking
- Sales and revenue analysis
- Staff performance tracking
- Gift cards and loyalty programs
On top of these advantages, most modern POS solutions are extremely affordable. Some companies even offer free POS hardware if you sign up for a subscription!
It’s not just internal tech that can help your restaurant increase sales and profit; you should also consider modern advertising solutions to bring more customers to your store. Digital marketing allows business owners to pinpoint relevant eaters in their area – it’s the perfect way to increase foot traffic.
5. Sales
Lastly, it’s critical to optimize your business for sales. Whether this be by improving your marketing material or offering promotions to customers, it’s essential to keep customers coming to your establishment. One of the best ways to improve brand loyalty is to install a loyalty program that rewards repeat customers.
Being creative with sales-oriented initiatives can help you stand out from the crowd. Let’s take a look at some creative ideas that can help you increase sales:
- Offer seasonal menu items
- Create a giveaway or competition for customers
- Discount meals for certain age groups (children, seniors, etc.)
- Discounts for customers that leave online reviews
No matter how you decide to approach sales, it’s critical to offer value to your customers. Don’t underestimate the power of providing a good service.
See also: How to Get Your Restaurant Seen by More People.
Verdict: Optimize Your Restaurant and Increase Profit
A comprehensive approach is critical to increasing your restaurant’s profitability. While all the ideas in this guide can help to improve your sales and profit margins, the results will lack fortitude if you don’t enact several strategies at the same time. Assessing every component of your business is the best way to make systemic, long-lasting changes.
