Keeping a restaurant to stay in business requires hard work. Many restaurants must close their businesses in the first years of operation due to low sales performance. Especially now when the economy is not at its best, the number of customers has been reduced as well because they don’t have the budgets for dining out.
This doesn’t mean you have to give up and shut down your business. There are still ways to save your business. Analyze your business situation, understand the problems, and improve it. Follow these steps to improve your restaurant’s performance:
1. Revise your marketing strategies
Many restaurants fail because they did not have solid marketing plans. If you want your restaurant to stand out in the competition, you have to promote it right. If flyers and newspaper ads fail to drive customers to your restaurant, you have to switch your strategy immediately. Maybe your customers prefer online news, that’s why they didn’t see your ads. Use social media ads such as Facebook ads to promote your restaurant. Develop relationships with your customers through social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram. Build a partnership with a discount website, such as Groupon to sell discount packages.
2. Understand what the customers’ needs
When your restaurant’s sales are declining, the first thing you have to review is what drive your customers away. Talk to your existing customers about your services and what needs to be improved. Read online reviews on websites such as Yelp to get honest feedback from your previous consumers. Learn from those comments and check them.
Evaluating customers’ reviews will help you find ways to improve the quality of your menus, staff service or price. Yet, there’s also a possibility that the problem is not your product or service. Sometimes customers change their preferences due to trends. You need to be flexible and start adjusting your offer to reflect the new trends.
3. Cut down your costs
When business is tough, you need to shrink your costs. Review your expenses and cut unnecessary costs. Find cheaper suppliers for your food stocks, but don’t sacrifice your standard of quality. When business is slow, you don’t need a lot of staff waiting for one shift. By rightsizing your staff status to contract or temporary employees, you can reduce the high cost of permanent workers. You can also review your utility bills and find other alternatives that can help you cut your bills.
4. Refinancing
Every business needs refinancing to keep them up and running. When the sales are low, it’s time for you to consider refinancing your restaurant. There are a lot of alternatives you can choose to refinance your restaurant. You can go to traditional banks or other conventional funding institutions. But, the probability you will get approved by these institutions is very low, because they consider restaurant business as a high-risk investment.
An ideal way to get refinance for your restaurant is by using merchant cash advance. Merchant cash advance gives you the flexibility that traditional funding institutions can’t give you. Aside for easy application and approval, you will get your funding within 48 hours after you apply. This will give you the time you need to improve your business and bring it back to live.