2024 Game Plan to Scale Your Restaurant

A great year starts with a great plan. Use this article to diagnose where you are with your restaurant currently and determine what needs to be improved to make 2024 your best year yet.

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The goal here is to help you find clarity around what parts of your business are working and which ones aren’t so that you know what to double down on in 2024 and what needs to be improved. To do that, I’m going to introduce you to a model that I have used to scale countless restaurants.

High level, Our job is really to work on 3 core parts of your restaurant:

1. Revenue Model: optimizing the way you currently make money
2. Ability to Garner Attention: think press and digital media
3. Customer Frequency: ultimately, answering the question: “Can you convince folks to come back when you need the business?”

All of the work we’ll be doing together has one singular focus: to scale profitability without increasing your current workload and reducing your current level of overwhelm.

So how do we do it right?

Grab a pen and the downloadable worksheet below and let’s run you through our working model.

The Model

To start, look at the triangle on the left side of the paper. On the left side write revenue, on the right side write attention and on the bottom write frequency. These are the drivers of profitability that create the momentum to scale and for each of them, there are 3 key accelerators.

Grading Yourself

So as we run through each accelerator, I want you to imagine a traffic light. This is going to be a self assessment of where you are with each component.

On the right side of the template, you’ll use that space to fill in the list from 1 to 9 and as we run through the accelerators rate yourself based on the following scale:

• Green – meaning you’re nailing it and it’s working amazing
• Yellow – meaning it’s going ok but could use some refinement
• Red – meaning this is a problem that you really need help with it

The First Driver: Revenue

When looking at revenue, the first thing we want to do is master margins. The point is to make sure that we’re funneling traffic to a restaurant that’s set up to make money. Let’s run through the 3 accelerators of revenue.

Master Margins

• Are you currently losing money or netting less than 15%?
• How close are you to the profitability goals of your current operation?

Let’s choose green, yellow or red.

Increasing Income

• Have you maxed out your current earning potential?
• Are you already slammed from open to close on peak?
• Does your team have the sales tools they need to maximize your average customer spend?
• Do you have systems in place to minimize turn times?
• Is your restaurant a well oiled sales machine?

Let’s choose green, yellow or red.

Diversification of Revenue

• How many revenue streams do you have at the moment?
• How many different ways are you making money?

Choose green, yellow or red.

We’ve covered the 3 accelerators of revenue and we know where you are on each. That’s going to go a long way to highlight where our strengths and weaknesses lie. Next let’s talk about awareness.

The Second Driver: Awareness

How good are you at getting attention? At the heart of that question is this question: how good are you at creating awareness for your brand? Because that is the only pathway to acquiring new customers. Let’s run through the 3 accelerators of awareness.

Social Media

• Are you proud of what you’re posting on social media?
• Are you posting as much as you would like to?
• Are you actively engaging with your audience?
• Are you communicating one on one or are you broadcasting to the masses?
• Is it part of a bigger marketing strategy?
• When you look at your competitors, are you the one putting out the best content?

Let’s choose green, yellow or red.

Maximize Conversion

Next let’s look at the websites where potential customers decide whether or not to choose you. Look at your website and Yelp page. Are these pages set up to convert?

Most of us don’t realize that these are sales pages that need to be designed to convince people to choose you today through world class copywriting, imagery and calls to action.

How are you doing there? Please choose green, yellow or red.

Earned Media

Lastly, let’s talk about Press.

• Are you getting the press you deserve?
• When you look at your competitors are you getting the same press they are?
• Are you in the monthly roundups like top 10 lists and best of series?
• Could you be getting more attention in the media?

Rate yourself Green if you’ve been written up in the past month, yellow if you’ve been written up in the last 3 months and red if it’s been longer than 3 months since your last piece of press.

And that’s how the best restaurateurs in the world get everyone’s attention.  Those are the key accelerators in creating a machine that’s constantly driving new traffic.

The Third Driver: Frequency

This is where most folks see the most opportunity. What would your business look like if everyone that dined with you once a month came in twice? It would change everything. Here’s how we do it.

Capture Data

• How good are you at capturing your customers name, phone number, email address and birthday?
• Do you have a mandated system in place to get that done?
• Are you tracking it?

For every 10 customers that come in, how many are you getting all of that information? Please rate yourself green, yellow or red.

Automate Messaging

• What are you doing with that data?
• Do you have a system in place that’s firing off texts and emails that they actually look forward to getting?
• Are you using those opportunities to provide value or to sell?
• Do you truly believe that the folks you message look forward to your emails and texts?
• Are you able to fire off a message and drive them back in when you need the business?

Let’s choose green, yellow or red.

Network Effect

• Who are your brand ambassadors?
• How many people are out there helping to drive traffic to your restaurant?
• Have you partnered with other local businesses to help breed awareness?
• Do you know the concierge at every hotel in your area?
• Are you on a first name basis with the office managers of every neighboring company?
• Do you personally know the names of every apartment complex manager in town?

Please choose green, yellow or red.

That’s it? That’s our working model and those are the accelerators. Did you notice something? None of the initiatives mentioned costs a dollar to implement.

Now we have a 360° scan of your business with some greens, yellows, and some reds. You need to leverage your strengths in green and fix the reds so that you can effectively scale your restaurant’s profitability.

Be sure to click below to download the template that walks you step by step through creating your 2024 Game Plan.

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