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The Big Bang... 6 Top Tips
The greatest transitioning of bar talent from “tender” to “keeper” is exploding across the planet!
In galactic terms, this is our Big Bang moment, a perfect expanding universe of opportunity!
On the other hand, science warns us: nothing expands forever... at some point, the opposite will occur... it’s called The Big Crunch!
So here’s 6 top tips to help Crunch the numbers, so you‘ll never get Crunched!:
- Finance Person... get one pronto to help with financial plans, budgets, projections. Work out your earliest break-even point and focus daily, weekly and monthly on hitting those numbers.
- Keep costs to a minimum... only spend when you must...always keep your powder dry for another day/time.
- Don’t over invest... whether that’s stock, staff or stuff... always ask the question is this a “must have” or a luxury “nice to have”... base this on your budget/prevailing profitability.
- Work 20% of the things that generates 80% of sales, income, opportunity... everything else leave or delegate.
- Measure everything... including your drinks, staff performance, customer satisfaction levels etc... what’s not measured, is not focused on, what’s not focused on, never happens, this is the Black Hole... sucking everything in its way!
- Metrics... put in place important financial barometers... i.e. costs of goods sold, avg. hourly rates, hours worked, spend per guest, bartender sales. These form part of your biz dash board, knowing at a glance where you are, helps make course corrections, if needed!
Owning your own bar is richly rewarding not to mention empowering... just as a cocktail needs to be consistent i.e. properly portioned and balanced, so a business requires the perfect balance of measures to create the best results!
Is Loyalty Dead?
Marketing has always taught us that business success is sustained by loyal customers, generating long term profitability!
Does this concept now significantly change when emotional relationships can be terminated by something as heartless as a text… does this devalue the very meaning of loyalty. Is it Dead?
Regrettably for business owners and managers who still think that “this, begets that and therefore one shall be fruitful and forever multiply” will be in for a rather rude shock!
When the fundamentals of human relationships have changed, then by default, the effect immediately impacts the hospitality and service industries; the people who try to capture, package and amplify broader societal trends!
Think about it, consumer attention spans are plummeting, competition for eyes, throats, backsides are at all-time highs… good gets lost in a maze of distractions; mixed signals turn customer facing interactions into forgettable “transactional” pallor!
Does this mean that an experience lives and dies on its merits, just in that moment! It’s now or maybe never again that an upset, disappointed, underwhelmed customer , judges your business and walks away silently!
How then does the "merit of the moment” impact a guests experience of value (or the perception of it), service levels, staff friendliness, overall attentiveness; determining whether the guest stays for the next drink, possibly a meal?
More importantly, how other than anecdotally do we measure these sometimes unseen/unheard customer pivot points?
There is no one answer, however the smart money suggests a combination of evolving strategies, dependant on the hour, day, week , season, event and occasion!
A likely merger of operational imperatives, continuous and at times repetitive staff training, seamless POS/CRM/smart technology, exemplary staff/consumer interactions, accurate tools to replicate, scale, measure and execute become the must dos to be successful on a moment by moment basis; of course flair, ingenuity and a point of difference are still important engagement tools too.
When you do not have your customer‘s loyalty other than in the moment this then becomes a powerful wake-up call, the catalyst to always be on top of your game: never relaxing, not taking anything for granted ever again!
Get ready now to excel, excite and explore daily! Your business will thank you!
Loyalty now lives in the moment!
Coffee, Tea or Botox?
Have you worked out the connection yet?
The answer is Nestlé... the Swiss-based Global Behemoth.
So then where or what’s the relevance of this Company to the lessons we in hospitality must learn?
Nestlé as a group invests in Innovation, R&D, Premiumisation at an industrial level.. they’re more like Google in owning the good stuff we need to live our lives! Swiss sensibility and deference will never allow for such blatant self-aggrandisement, however why we think this firm is one which holds a key making them the Über of Über... they invest massively in products associated with RITUAL!
Take away Wall Street financials and shareholder info, this Company is totally invested in the most important products tied to ritual, a possible exception, alcohol!
From baby food, children’s beverages, water, coffee, tea, wellness etc. there are multiple rituals attached... quaint customs, social mores and Nestlé is there by our side... and we say that in the most positive way!
We have a lifelong involvement with Nestlé and don’t even know it... and yes, man’s best friend is a happy customer too!
Back to the question then. Why is RITUAL so important to the bigger picture and how can we learn and benefit?Ritual equals connection, emotion, engagement and an experience which combines to create a bond so sticky it lasts. Of course, over many products and categories this effect multiplies! So, what’s the consequence of all of this? A powerful enabling driver of long term profits, sustainability, creating more investment in innovation, employment, community engagement,overall shareholder/stakeholder wealth creation and satisfaction galore!
Whilst “Provenance” or historic romance is oft used in the Liquor industry.. nothing beats the customer’s connection to ritual. I doubt very much that Nestlé reduces it’s customer facing commercial propositions to “Cost Per Shot” conversations rather than a more noble value proposition involving the total return (life time value) that ritual generates!
Ritual provides permission to collect and engage. Name, rank, email address; all given happily, effortlessly, by grateful customers!
Longer term after the dust settles, in the broader disintermediation wars of product and distribution supply lines, guess who’ll be in the position to do it all to your door... and they’ll have a pretty complete understanding of all your wants and most of your desires too!
As either front or back of house facing hospitality businesses, whether we’re enablers or providers there is a value to investing beyond the brief moment... and this is possible when the centre of our universe is our respective customers/guests, by working backwards from that point one can engineer a business loop, that creates fun, occasion, destination and ritual and the end game, you’ll be in business a long time!