How to Increase Restaurant Sales
Cutting costs is a first step in getting your food and labor costs in line, but you also want to increase restaurant sales. Once you have the right systems in place, every dollar above breakeven makes you 30 to 40 cents on every single dollar. That’s some motivation to drive sales, right? How do you increase restaurant sales? Watch this video, or keep scrolling, for some ideas.
So, how do you increase restaurant sales?
There are three ways, and only three ways, to increase your sales. That's it.
Number one is to get new customers to walk through your door. This is all about advertising and marketing. You have to make sure your Yelp reviews are good, your trip advisors are good, you're using your delivery services, and you have good feature or special items. If you’re driving customers with ads and special offers, make sure when they look you up they have good reasons to come in for a meal. This is the most expensive way to increase restaurant sales.
The second way is get your customers to come back more often. If you can get somebody to come two days a week instead of one day, or fives times in a month instead of four times, you’re driving up your sales. What's the average ticket anymore per person? Probably about $25 and up to $50 in some restaurants. And they usually bring people with them. It could be a $100 tab. If you get those people to come back just a little bit more often, your sales can increase with your existing customers.
The third way to get your customers to spend more money every time they visit is features. Increase the ticket with featured items. This is why we need to upsell the table. For example, when someone orders a vodka tonic, the server or bartender asks, “Would you like Tito's in that?” The well stuff doesn’t make as much money, so upselling to a featured vodka is a way to increase sales.
By the way, upselling also results in a better experience for the customer. You’re offering them something to enhance their choices, something that will be more memorable and go beyond the expectations they walked into the restaurant with. Focusing on an improved experience results in higher ticket averages and more repeat customers.
There are only three ways to increase your restaurant sales. Since getting a brand new customer is the most expensive form of marketing, aim to get current customers to come back more often and spend more each time they visit.
While you do still need to find new customers, a loyalty program in your business will explode your profits. People will come back more often and spend more every visit because they're getting rewarded.
A good friend of mine, Kamron Karington, owns Repeat Returns, which is a loyalty program on steroids. Visit their Web site at http://www.repeatreturns.com.
Call them and tell them you learned about it from me. I don't make a dime, but if you want the right loyalty program, this is my recommendation. Repeat Returns will take care of all three of these ways to increase restaurant sales.
I cover systems like this and more in my book? Order your copy of Restaurant Prosperity Formula: What Successful Restaurateurs Do here.
If you would like to learn more about the importance of systems and how to run a restaurant, read our free special report, Is Your Food Distributor Screwing You? 5 Things You Can Do Now to Lower Food Cost. Download it here. Be sure to visit my YouTube channel for more helpful restaurant management video tips.
