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Restaurant and Bar Operators: 3 Surefire Ways To Increase Your Revenue and Profits in 2019

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This information is NOT for people who run restaurants as their hobby. The advice below are for people who treat a restaurant as a real business and you are serious about make your business more successful and more profitable.

1. Increase and Optimize Web Presence

A recent Nielsen report shows adults between the age of 35 to 49 spend an average 7 hours a week on social media. And social media such as instagram and facebook are powerful tools to turn suspects into loyal customers. And it's becoming more and more important in your restaurant marketing strategy.

Here is how to do it:

Post everyday even a few times a day. It can be pictures of the delicious looking food, videos of your party or food event, instant stories about guests enjoying themselves and having fun, or attention grabbing content or memes. Attention is good. Seasonal and event-based content are great such as football games, Christmas, and anything that people pay attention at the moment as long as it fits into your brand image. People like stories so you can even hire people to interview you and talk about what you want to accomplish here. Maybe some food blogs or magazines will pick it up and spread word for you for free. Don't forget to put in tags and the narrow location. Get a high quality camera that can shoot both pictures and videos and just do it.

Try social media promotions. Do you know advertising on Facebook and Instagram is actually very simple once you just put your hands on it. Compared to traditional media, Facebook gives you a lot of easy flexibility to select when, what, where, who, and how to target your promotions. For example, if you own a sports bar and you want more people during the Superbowl to come to your bar to drink. You can target men between the age of 25-45 who like the NY Jets and the Giants who live 5 miles radius of your bar and also "like" your competitor down the street. Pick your budget and how long you want the promotion to run. You see what's going on here? And remember it's a consistent long-term game.

Make Yelp and Google Your Best Friends: How do people find your restaurants who they just moved into a new neighborhood? Yelp and Google. If they have feedback to give you, where do they go to express their opinions? Yelp and Google. Where do they go to see your menu and decide if they want to come to your restaurant? Yelp and Google. Got it? You need to optimize your Yelp and Google real estate. Answer customer concerns and feedback, positive and negative. This will show your customers that you really care and allow you to interact with your customers in a mass scale and build loyalty. Update your profiles and even pay a little money to get your business featured.

2. Increase Dollar-Spent Per Customer

Now you have acquired your customers, you need to offer them a good experience and also maximize the lifetime value per customer. Two things to improve here: How much they spend per visit and how often they visit.

Create a weekly or bi-weekly special off-the-menu items. This will accomplish two things. It gives customer a fresher experience every time. And it will incentivize them to try something new and spend more money. Better experience and more money.

Train your staff to sell and not just ask for orders. Best trained staff know how to get customer to like them and trust their advice. It could be selling an obscure item on a menu that's really good but not enough people know about it. Give your staff the ability to offer 2 for 1 specials and make their customers feel special. For example:"You guys are really cool. Hey if you order one more Curry Chicken Casserole for share I'll secretly bring a free dessert for you. This new dessert is soooo goooood. But don't tell anyone or my boss. Wink wink* "

When customers are ready to pay, give your staff some candies or mints to put in the check. A study shows, if you put mints in the customer's' check and run back to give them even more mints because the customers are nice, the tips will increase by 38%. For staff who's compensation is heavily depended on tips, this is an invaluable tactic.

Then at the end, offer them a 5-10% discount if they return the next two weeks. Always offer them a little incentive to come see you again because they will take up the offer and bring their friends soon.

3. Eliminate Unproductive Costs (You need to know this) Important!

Advertising and marketing to get more customers cost money. Training staff to become good salespersons also cost money because time is money. We need to find ways to cut some costs so you can keep more of the sales in your pocket AKA profits.

You rent cannot be cut. You don't have the negotiating power like big restaurant chains on your suppliers. You don't want to fire people and be short handed on staff. More importantly, you don't want to cut costs that will affect your food quality.

No worries. I did the homework for you. There's a very unproductive expense that restaurant and bar owners often ignore or forget because they think they just have to pay it and it's part of the cost of running a restaurant. It's also eating into your profits without really giving you anything back.

Ding ding ding, it's your 2.5% to 4% CREDIT CARD PROCESSING FEES.

When customers use their American Express or Visa Rewards Cards, you get charged up to 3.5% and $.25 per swipe. Why so high? Because banks give them 3-5% cash back. And it's coming out from your pocket. This expense doesn't give you any indirect or direct benefits as a business owner, so let's just call it an unproductive cost.

Guess what? It's the end of 2018 and you can now COMPLETELY CUT DOWN 100% of your credit card processing fees due to new changes in the payment cards regulations. It's called a Cash Discount Program. It's running hot and being heavily talked about in world-famous restaurants in big cities such as NYC and LA.

This company in New York City called WOW Payments specializes in helping business such as restaurants, bars, nightclubs, and small retails stores eliminate 100% of their credit card processing fees using their next-generation Cash Discount Program and their future-proof payment technology. They are one of the only companies in the US who actually have the know-hows and insider experience to implement this new credit card processing program.

WOW Payments has some very positive reviews online and it's an "A" rated company on BBB. Their friendly reps also told me they don't require any contract and the membership only $99 a month including free latest terminals or POS systems. You can check them out here: WOWPAYMENTS.COM

Here you have it: Get more customers. Get them to spend more money more often. Cut your credit card processing costs.