We discuss the Just Eat half year results.  Our advice is always to try and negotiate on the rates that they charge.  There can be a big variation between the commissions that they charge different restaurants - so negotiate and see how much you can save.  (Or you can get Free Restaurant OnLine Ordering with FROLO) :)  

This episode covers People and Processes so that you can take a holiday.

People.  

We've talked to some experts on Restaurant hiring and culture, like Nick Sarillo from Nick's Pizza and Pub in Chicago and Carrie Luxem, from Restaurant HR Group, about how to hire right for your company and how to retain great people.  Getting the hiring right is a big part of building a strong team and a strong team is a team that can function when you are away on your holiday.

Process

The last P in the 3Ps of taking a holiday is process.  How do you do everything in your Restaurant?  Clear communication about what the job entails and how it needs to be done.

We look at a couple of examples around how process can make a big difference in your business and how it can build trust into your business.  Too many businesses don't do inventory and they are afraid to leave the business because they are worried that too much stock will walk out the door if they aren't there.

Too many restaurants are only open when the owner is physical in the Restaurant.  If you had great processes, you can then open longer, which can dramatically increase profitability.  Have a listen to this because it can make a big difference.

Some tech we use are Slack and Zoom.  This helps our teams communicate.  Confluence is a great tool to keep all of your procedures.  This is great for recipes and for all of your opening and closing routine procedures.  IP cameras are a great way to provide a powerful tool to help with trust.  It is good to be able to review the video for instances when a customer claims a hair is in their soup, or someone working the till, or the staff member that doesn't do any work.  

Helping Restaurant owners take a holiday is a big thing for us, so if you've used any of our tips or tools to take a holiday, please send us a photo!

For more information on this podcast, check out our show notes.

If you liked this episode, please leave a review in iTunes.  It really helps us to get the word out and share it on our Facebook page.

For Free Tools  to build your Restaurant business, check out our free tools page.  We've helped restaurants around the world build the Restaurant that they always wanted with our tools.  Our free booking tool has taken over $25,000,000 in seats booked.

As a restaurant owner, when did you last take a holiday?  We is your next holiday planned for?  Do you have a holiday planned?

Too many Restuarant owners aren't able to take even a short holiday from their Restaurant and I think that is really sad.  It leads to burn out and people falling out of love with their Restaurant and if you don't love working in your Restaurant, how can you expect your employees to love coming to work, and when no one loves coming to work, your customers aren't going to love coming in to eat.

We talk about Foodora leaving Australia.  There was no surprise here, especially with their 2 court cases coming up in Australia.  There has been a big backlash from Restaurants struggling with profitability and from customers as well.

We talk about some of the tricks that Restaurants are using when they are using Deliveroo or UberEats to retain some profitability.

The look at the 3Ps of Restaurant Holidays.

• Profits - you need profits to pay your wage and the costs to go on holiday!
• People - Great people make it a lot easier to get away.
• Processes - Great processes makes it easier for people to do what they need to do the way that you want it.

Burn out is a real risk in running a Restaurant.  There is a lot of horror involved in running a Restaurant.  There is customers, suppliers, reviews, staff.  A lot of these things can create a lot of pressure for you and without a break you can end up burning out.

Too many people run marginal businesses without decent profit.    Nothing is going to change if you aren't going to change.  If your Restaurant is marginal, then you need to do something new, you need to change the business to make it profitable.

A successful business is a business that gives you a good return for the work you put in.  If the business plan won't work you need to change the business plan and if you aren't getting the number of customers, then you need to change your marketing plan.

For more information on this podcast, check out our show notes.

If you liked this episode, please leave a review in iTunes.  It really helps us to get the word out and share it on our Facebook page.

For Free Tools  to build your Restaurant business, check out our free tools page.  We've helped restaurants around the world build the Restaurant that they always wanted with our tools.  Our free booking tool has taken over $25,000,000 in seats booked.

Knowing what is going on with your website is an important ingredient in your Restaurant's Secret Sauce.

We look at bounce rates and then we move onto the dark arts of Restaurant Marketing - campaign tagging with the Google Analytics campaign builder.  This is really important because it helps you keep your marketing accountable.

Website speed and page load time is a really important part of the SEO for your site.  This is more important for mobiles and most Restaurant customers are on mobile.  Check the speed with the Google PageSpeed Insights page.

What are the 2 types of customers who will be using Google and how do you treat each of them?

What can you discover from the Behaviour and site content pages?  There is a lot of information that you can find here and some of it is very important.

We finish with the Secret to Restaurant SEO.  This is what most SEO companies don't want you to know, we share it with you so that you can come up with a great SEO plan to increase web traffic, increase customers, increase revenue, increase profits and then decrease the number of hours that you are working in your Restaurant.

For more information on this podcast, check out our show notes.

If you liked this episode, please leave a review in iTunes.  It really helps us to get the word out and share it on our Facebook page.

We talk about our Platform, which give our customers comparative analytics, so that you can know how you are doing compared to other Restaurants.  This can be a big competitive advantage over Restaurants not getting this information.

For Free Tools to build your Restaurant business, check out our free tools page.  We've helped restaurants around the world build the Restaurant that they always wanted with our tools.  Our free booking tool has taken over $25,000,000 in seats booked.

Did you check out the episode on how to fly like a celebrity chef?  The good news is that I have been practising what I preach and I've been lucky enough to make Platinum with Qantas.  There has been a bit of travelling around the world, visiting Restaurants and being Platinum certainly makes things a lot nicer.  How can you craete a loyalty program that makes your regularly customers feel really special?

We go through each of the tabs on Google Analytics about the key metrics in Google Analytics.  This will help you to understand how people are finding your website and also give you the insights to improve it.  This is the most important part that you want to be thinking about.

If you don't have Google Analytics, here is a link for how to set up your Google Analytics account.   

We go through each of the key metrics and what you can learn from the metrics and how each one of them fits into the Restaurant marketing process.  Not only what does each of the metrics mean, but how you can increase them.  Generally, hopefully, more traffic to your website means more customers in your Restaurant.

How many people are coming to your website on a mobile?  Is it mobile optimized?  If not you might be missing out on many of the new customers that you need, especially if you are in a tourist area.

The Audience tab gives you insights into who your customers are and what they are doing.  Male vs Female and age group information can also be found.  

What are the differing sales techniques that you need to use for new vs returning customers?  

Many small Restaurants use Credit Cards to pay for a lot of bills.  With some really simple changes, you can make a really big difference in the kind of travel that you can take.

We talk to Steve Hui from I Fly Flat.  This is something that we do a pretty good job of, and I was able to get an upgrade to Business Class last year for our family as we flew from Melbourne to Singapore in December last year.  This was an Epic experience flying Business Class with Qantas.

Steve discusses a range of tactics that you can use fly in style around the world, just by changing some purchasing habits and maybe just even changing your credit cards.

Travel is a really important part of life, I think.  Experiencing different places, different cultures.

To pick the right card, you want to match it to your suppliers.  We talk credit card surcharges and some ways that you can negotiate down the credit card surcharge with some of your suppliers.

Not many small business owners are doing this, but it can be a great way to start travelling, or to start travelling in style.

We look at a way that you can increase the points that you get from making payments to the government, which can make a really big difference in your points balance.

We talk about the experience as a Qantas Gold customer, which gives access to Lounges around the world.  Grab a quick shower in between flights and some complimentary food and drinks before your next adventure.

The kids loved the upgrade to Qantas Business Class.

Important point - make sure that are paying off the credit card balance each month so that you are avoiding the expensive credit card interest.

** Update **

As we having been flying around the world seeing customers and studying Restaurant marketing, I have managed to make Platinum, which give you access to the First Class Lounge.  OMG!  These are epic.  Definitely something to think about.  Woo Hoo!

**

Our BHAG is to make a meaningful difference in Restaurant Owners lives.  Hopefully this will help inspire to start planning towards taking your next holiday.  If it does, please send us a photo of you on holidays.  We would really appreciate it.

For more information on this podcast, check out our show notes.

If you liked this episode, please leave a review in iTunes.  It really helps us to get the word out and share it on our Facebook page.

For Free Tools  to build your Restaurant business, check out our free tools page.  We've helped restaurants around the world build the Restaurant that they always wanted with our tools.  Our free booking tool has taken over $25,000,000 in seats booked.

We talk about a Restaurant in Perth who had been struggling for years and years now.  He had a Restaurant that had very poor SEO, was quite hard to find in Google.  He had a purple website with no images and no online bookings.  It seems that the Restaurant wasn't too bad, but the marketing was just awful.  The marketing mistakes that he made over the last 4 years could have easily cost him an extra $200,000.  What could he have done with an extra $200K?  Or should he have closed the restaurant 4 years ago?

Either way he would have been better off if he had made a choice 4 years ago to either change something fundamental with the way that the Restaurant was run.

We also look at the tragic story of Esquire.  Head Chef, Ryan Squires, had worked at elBulli, French Laundry.  A great chef who has worked his guts out running a great Restaurant and he has closed it and he views it as a waste of time.  

The food was immaculate at Esquire, great sommelier, eclectic mix of food and drinks.  I thought the pricing was on the cheap side for the experience that they provided.

How do we build Restaurant business that give the great chefs the resources that they need to run successful Restaurants.

We look at some of the issues that Esquire had with it's marketing.  Full on a Friday and Saturday night but quiet during the week, that is the hallmark of a great restaurant with marketing issues.  There were a range of issues with the website and the online marketing.  You don't want to have the best Restaurant that no one has ever heard of.  

He had a falling out with his business partner and that left him alone.  Partnerships, when they work, can be very powerful and Ryan was left with all of the problems of running the Restaurant.  For a Chef like Ryan, who needs to be highly creative and focused, it is very hard to do that when you are running the business yourself.

Ryan is a highly mature chef, who approached his business in a very mature way.  Hopefully we will see him back at some time in the future.

For more information on this podcast, check out our show notes.

If you liked this episode, please leave a review in iTunes.  It really helps us to get the word out and share it on our Facebook page.

For Free Tools  to build your Restaurant business, check out our free tools page.  We've helped restaurants around the world build the Restaurant that they always wanted with our tools.  Our free booking tool has taken over $25,000,000 in seats booked.

We look at what we learnt from Dinner by Heston.

Firstly, have a think about the photos that you've got.  I will put some images up in the show notes to give you an idea about the kind of photos that you can take with an entry level camera or a decent mobile phone.

Dinner by Heston has a unifying story throughout the menu - cooking food for centuries ago and reinterpreting them in a way that is interesting and compelling for customers.

Every dish had a story and they tell the story really well.  There was Savoury Porridge.  This was green and gives everyone something to talk about.  Green Porridge.  For Dinner.  Savoury Porridge.  Lots of interesting components to the dish to get people talking about the Restaurant.

I was lucky enough that my wife had booked the Chef's table for us.  A great high value experience that gives you a close up view of the workings of the kitchen. 

Our tea came with an hour glass to tell us when the tea was properly steeped.  A small thing that signals the value of the experience that you are having. 

As a part of the Chef's Table, we were able to see the quality assurance commitment that the team have.  It shows.  The steak that we had was probably the best I have ever had.  

Mentoring in the Restaurant - does your head chef do this?  Helping out all of the team to be their best in the team.  I think mentoring is a big thing, it makes the team better and good mentoring usually means that your team members will stay with you longer because you are investing in their career.

We look at the sourcing work that the sommelier.  An eclectic range of drinks that were immaculately paired with the degustation menu.

Do you have an incremental revenue opportunity from Birthday cakes?

Have a think about creating unique and epic desserts.

How can you create something, a physical link with the experience that you have created?

Are you using OpenTable?  Are you getting the email addresses of your customers booking through OpenTable?  Do you want to be giving them access to your booking list to another company?  We talk about IP leakage and what it can cost you.

For more information on this podcast, check out our show notes.

If you liked this episode, please leave a review in iTunes.  It really helps us to get the word out and share it on our Facebook page.

For Free Tools  to build your Restaurant business, check out our free tools page.  We've helped restaurants around the world build the Restaurant that they always wanted with our tools.  Our free booking tool has taken over $25,000,000 in seats booked.

What if you ran your Restaurant like Princess Cruises?

I spoke to a Restaurant owner and he said why think about cruises?  

We look at operational efficiencies and how looking outside the Restaurant industry can give you ideas about innovation for your Restaurant.  We discuss Southwest Airlines and how they redefined industry best practice in turning around the aircraft.  It is a great story about culture and innovation that you can use in your Restaurant.

We look at our time from on the Sapphire Princess.  We look at the food with Princess Cruises.  It is amazing the quality of the food that is produced out of a floating kitchen.

We talk about what it is that your customers buy from you.  Often it is not the food, sometimes it is, but there are other products that customers are looking at.

The chefs did a great job in the descriptions of the food.  There were theme nights.  These are things that can drive more customers on quiet nights.  What if you swapped chefs with another chef to create unique events?

We talk about the experiences created by the pool, watching the TV.  We discuss beatboxing squirrels.  

Princess Cruises aim for a family demographic and do a lot of work around creating experiences for the entire family.

How do they upsell with their alcohol?  For a family, what is your mocktail play for the children?  Wine tasting seminars, cocktail making seminars.  All of these are experiential events that add to the value of the cruise and are centered around food.

The chef ran a cooking demonstration, followed by a behind the scenes of the kitchen.

2670 guests and a crew of 1100.  3 square meals a day.  The costings and planning are done very well, because when they can't run done the road to the local market.

The cruise industry understands revenue per available bed.  They aim to fill every room that they can.

Princess Cruises really understand the power of social.  The staff were always very keen to take a photo of the passengers with their own camera, knowing that the photos would be shared on social media.

How do they create great experiences around the food?  

For more information on this podcast, check out our show notes.

If you liked this episode, please leave a review in iTunes.  It really helps us to get the word out and share it on our Facebook page.

For Free Tools  to build your Restaurant business, check out our free tools page.  We've helped restaurants around the world build the Restaurant that they always wanted with our tools.  Our free booking tool has taken over $25,000,000 in seats booked.

We discuss products and services.  What is it that you do?  Many restaurants that we speak to who have been running restaurants for 10 years still do not know what it is that they do and what it is that their customers buy from them.

For the numbers for your Restaurant, make sure you have pessimistic numbers in there.  Too much optimism in your P+L spreadsheet makes it very hard to be long term viable.

What is your pricing strategy?

How do you put a restaurant under management?

Innovation - what is your approach to Research and Development.  R + D can be a clear differentiator for your restaurant.  Restaurants are designed for innovation, but too many don't innovate.

Insurance, the costs and what is covered?

Are you designing your customer for high throughput?  Is your kitchen limiting the number of customers that you can manage?

What is your strategy around supplier choice - this can make a big difference for your story, your margin, and your success.

Fit out costs for your Restaurant.  How can you get a cheap fitout for your restaurant?

How much inventory do you need and how will you fund it.

We look at the Restaurant Marking plan and some of the big mistakes that people make when it comes to the restaurant opening.

Trading hours.  This is a small question but has some huge implications for your Restaurant.  This is not an easy question to answer without a fair amount of thinking and planning.

For more information on this podcast, check out our show notes.

If you liked this episode, please leave a review in iTunes.  It really helps us to get the word out and share it on our Facebook page.

For Free Tools  to build your Restaurant business, check out our free tools page.  We've helped restaurants around the world build the Restaurant that they always wanted with our tools.  Our free booking tool has taken over $25,000,000 in seats booked.

We talk about creating a Restaurant Business Plan as a living document to help you better run your business.

We have a copy of blank Business Plan Template and we go through the process of filling it in, and give you some ideas and guidance around the kind of information that you need to put in there.

Why is it important to create a Restaurant Business Plan?

We look at some of the resources that you can use to fill in some of the gaps that you have.

We discuss ownership structures, with the positive and the negatives that can coming from the varying structures.

We look at some sources for funding for your Restaurant, there are some sources of funding that most business don't think about.

What are the considerations for the domain name and the business name.  We look at the considerations that you need to think about and some of the ways that you can protect your business and your intellectual property.

Business location.  There is a lot to think about in the location of where your business will be.  We talk about the implications for revenue, rent and profitability are with the locations that you select.  Should you buy your premises?  What are the risks and rewards of this strategy?

We look at the structure of the Restaurants organizational chart.  What are the considerations here?  How do you retain your key staff?  Who is going to perform the roles that you need in the restaurant?

What is the succession planning for the roles in the restaurant?

How should you do your policy and procedures in the restaurant?

Hiring - where can you find the people that you need for your Restaurant?  Is Facebook advertising an answer for your recruiting needs?  How long will they we working in the restaurant before the restaurant opens?

How will you train your team?

For more information on this podcast, check out our show notes.

If you liked this episode, please leave a review in iTunes.  It really helps us to get the word out and share it on our Facebook page.

For Free Tools  to build your Restaurant business, check out our free tools page.  We've helped restaurants around the world build the Restaurant that they always wanted with our tools.  Our free booking tool has taken over $25,000,000 in seats booked.

Carrie is owner of Restaurant HR and company that specifically deals with Restaurant HR issues.  She also runs CarrieLuxem.com which helps Restaurants with the broader HR issues, like leadership and culture.

We discuss the definition of Leadership and how it is so important in Restaurants.  

What are some of the steps that people can take to be a better Restaurant Leader?

We also look at the relationship between culture and leadership.

Can anyone be a leader?

We talk about some books that you can read:

Rework - By Jason Fried

Start with why - Simon Synek

What are the first steps to take when you are trying to turn a restaurant around as a leader?

You need to hold people accountable to what they need to do.

At what size Restaurant is it important to create a vision?

Carrie has created   resources to assist Restaurant owners to create and execute on your Restaurant's Vision, Mission and Purpose.

We talk about Linkedin and how Carrie uses it to grow her profile.

Have a look at Carrie's excellent book - Restaurant Operators HR Playbook

For more information on this podcast, check out our show notes.

If you liked this episode, please leave a review in iTunes.  It really helps us to get the word out and share it on our Facebook page.

For Free Tools  to build your Restaurant business, check out our free tools page.  We've helped restaurants around the world build the Restaurant that they always wanted with our tools.  Our free booking tool has taken over $25,000,000 in seats booked.

We finish off place.  Have you thought of running your Restaurant like a franchise?  Get the economies of scale in purchases and economies of scales in activities in your restaurants.  Create an operations manual so that everyone knows what needs to be done in the restaurant.

We look at dine-in, take out and delivery.  

We finish off with promotion.  Promotion is not about the promotions that you run, but the channels that you use to promote your restaurant.

We look at some of the ways that you can increase the effectiveness of your promotion.

You don't want to be the best restaurant that no one has ever heard of.

For more information on this podcast, check out our show notes.

If you liked this episode, please leave a review in iTunes.  It really helps us to get the word out and share it on our Facebook page.

For Free Tools  to build your Restaurant business, check out our free tools page.  We've helped restaurants around the world build the Restaurant that they always wanted with our tools.  Our free booking tool has taken over $25,000,000 in seats booked.

Price Setting - How do you set the price?  Price Leader, a Premium Price?  How does that impact your customers and how does it impact your profitability?

We look at M Y China and one of their amazing dessert item - the Sugar Egg Puffs.  These are awesome.

How does Menu Engineering fit in with your pricing?  We look at the Dogs, Stars, Puzzles and Plow Horses.

Revenue Per Available Seat Hour.  What is this metric, where did it come from and how important is it to your business model.  How can you influence it?

Getting the balance between your fixed and variable costs is critical.  How can you increase the number of hours that your restaurant is open without increasing the number of hours that you are working?

Loyalty discounts can make a big difference in increasing customer loyalty.  This increases the Long Term Customer Value for each customer and increases the Return on Investment for each new customer that you find.

Payment Terms.  Restaurants Love Cash!  Prebookings can decrease your no show rates.  Prebookings for fixed product, eg a degustation menu means you may be able to vary the price for higher demand nights.

Place - where is the the place?  Is it your Restaurant?  

Valet Parking?  Ubers?  Courtesy buses.

How do food trucks fit into the mix?

For more information on this podcast, check out our show notes.

If you liked this episode, please leave a review in iTunes.  It really helps us to get the word out and share it on our Facebook page.

For Free Tools  to build your Restaurant business, check out our free tools page.  We've helped restaurants around the world build the Restaurant that they always wanted with our tools.  Our free booking tool has taken over $25,000,000 in seats booked.

What are the 4Ps and the Restaurant Marking Mix?

We look at Product.  It may be something that you eat or it could be something else, or a mix of both.  

When you fundamentally understand the product that your customers want, you will be able to price it appropriately.  

What are the demographics of people that you want to target and what is it they they want to buy?  Should you change the products that you sell through the duration of the day.

What is the competitor analysis look like?  If there are 8 local pizza shops, you probably don't want to be the 9th.

What do you do and do you specialise in it?

How does the length of the menu impact the time your customers take to decide.

Packaging is a part of your product.  You want to avoid using other brands packaging for your food.  Use the packaging to reinforce your USP.

How does Nick Sarello at Nicks Pizza and Pub use monthly customer pizza recipes to build a community.

Too many restaurants don't use just noticeable  differences in their pricing strategy.

Is Price part of the Product for your menu items?

What is yield utilisation and how can you get it to work for you in your Restaurant?

For more information on this podcast, check out our show notes.

If you liked this episode, please leave a review in iTunes.  It really helps us to get the word out and share it on our Facebook page.

For Free Tools  to build your Restaurant business, check out our free tools page.  We've helped restaurants around the world build the Restaurant that they always wanted with our tools.  Our free booking tool has taken over $25,000,000 in seats booked.

Firstly, make sure you check you Google My Business account for your Restaurant.  Incorrect information could be costing you thousands or tens of thousands of dollars!

We talk about Jamie's Italian.  A restaurant chain over $100 million in debt with stories of poor food, poor team culture and poor experiences for diner's.  A Sydney Jamie's Italian was filmed using packet Gnocci when they advertise making their own pasta.  I am not a food lawyer, and technically, yes gnocchi is not pasta, but it highlights some of the concerns about the chain.  Jamie Oliver has done an amazing amount of work, particularly with school kids, to improve the diet of millions of people and to try and limit the power of food and drink manufacturers who create unhealthy food, but it looks like a licensing deal for his name.  Building scale and keeping the quality is very difficult, it comes done to leadership and procedures.

We went to Lagnaa Bare Foot Dining.  This is a great Indian Restaurant in Singapore.  Chef Kaesavan has done an amazing job with the menu and the experience that he creates.  A lot of effort has gone into crafting the menu which does a great job of telling the story of his food. The experience is around the bare foot dining, which you need to ask for.  Off menu secret items and experiences are a great way of making people feel like they are in the in crowd and everyone wants to be in the in crowd!  The menu highlights child friendly food and has a heat rating for the hot dishes, with special events for those who love their food really hot.

Bailey's Galub Jamun! Everyone should go there and check out how Chef Kaesavan has put together such a great experience.

We went to Port Klang in Malaysia.  There was one restaurant on Google we liked the look of, tragically it had closed, so we wandered around looking for authentic Malay food.  There were a few restaurants, but none that were tourist friendly and had put in any work to attract walk ins.  We ended up having some epic Japanese food.

Beard Papa - this is a chain that does the 'World's best cream puffs'.  These were a favourite with the kids (young and old) and would be the perfect addition to many restaurants desserts menu, looking for something tasting and I think probably high margin.

Cow Dung Tarts in Malasia - they looked great, but I am not sure how keen I am to get more cow dung in my diet! :)

For more information on this podcast, check out our show notes.

If you liked this episode, please leave a review in iTunes.  It really helps us to get the word out and share it on our Facebook page.

For Free Tools  to build your Restaurant business, check out our free tools page.  We've helped restaurants around the world build the Restaurant that they always wanted with our tools.  Our free booking tool has taken over $25,000,000 in seats booked.

What is the Boost Juice way of marketing?  How can they get PR coverage for an app update?  Another example of how being a little bit out there can get you some great results.  

We managed to fly to Singapore in Business Class with @qantas, which was super awesome.  Make sure you are looking into your credit cards and the points you collect!  We got the upgrade with points which was super cool.

We talk about the Tourist Traps.  These restaurants rely on tourists, sting them and know that people will never come back.  It was hideously expensive for what it was and we got tricked by the happy hour deals.

We found Tokyo $5 Izakaya.  This was a great restaurant.  There was no website, only a hungrygowhere listing.  This was clearly not enough because they are now closed :(.  They had great food, great value and provided a great experience, but it is no good being the best restaurant that no one has ever heard of.  Not having a website meant no Google places entry and less customers.

Avocado Espresso smoothie - the Avo Freak from The Hangar.

We visited Hong Kong Soya Sauce, Chicken Rice and Noodle.  How can hawker food get 1 star from the Michelin Guide.  What is the lesson for you in menu design from the street food hawkers.

What lessons are there from Singaporean Street Food.  How can you create innovative meals and experiences with ideas from street food.  We look at packaging with Meatballs in a bucket!  Molten Raclette Cheese is an amazing taste!

Travelling is great for the soul and it is great for inspiration as you can see what other people and other cultures are doing with food and this can help you in your kitchen and in your restaurant to be more innovative and creation.  Restaurant innovation can be a key ingredient in restaurant profitability.

This podcast started with an article in the Sydney Morning Herald that described Menulog as "the business partner he never wanted".

We look at Restaurant Brandjacking and websites set up by online aggregators which look like the web

Adwords Arbitrage.  We discuss how restaurants can advertise on Google Adwords and get clicks to their platforms, not your website.  We talked about this with Kyle Welter who used to work at Google and understands how big companies use this practice.

We discuss how the margins that restaurants are charged by online aggregators and how some restaurants are dealing with the large fees that they are charged.  

How does the restaurant circle of life work and how can you avoid being of the restaurants that fails.

Domain squatting - We have issues with big companies like Menulog registering domains 'on behalf' of restaurants.  This becomes their property and they will build one of their websites, which don't have your phone number and don't havedirect contact details for your Restaurant.  Each order coming from that website is charged the commission that they normally charge.

Variable commission campaigns - restaurants are now getting a better placement in the online aggregator platforms by paying higher commission.  We have seen this with Grub Hun in the United States.  

Vertical integration risk - Are the delivery companies like UberEats and Deliveroo looking to cook their own food?  Deliveroo Editions is just one step away from Deliveroo cutting the Restaurant out of the entire picture for their business.  As they look to increase profit margins, I think that it is a really big risk for restaurants.  The restaurants are low cost with very low property costs.  If they learn to cook, they could be very difficult to compete against.

Franchise restaurants are starting to look at delivery options and online ordering aggregators.  This may squeeze out the small restaurants that were the traditional customers of the aggregators.

Is your brand at risk from other companies?  Brand risk is increasing as big companies work to build their brands, not yours.

Risks to the restaurants when using delivery companies include the lose of control over the time and delivery service that is provide.  We discuss some of the interesting stories about delivery riders from the big delivery companies.

The risks for UberEats and Deliveroo include whether the deliver rider is an independant contractor or an employee.  There will be more scrutiny on this, especially around the minimum wages.  What is UberEats long term plan - we discuss their race against time.

Are battery powered delivery scooters are viable option for Restaurants to build out their own delivery service?

Have you thought out about pick up only services for your restaurant?  It is the perfect accompaniment for a restaurant with spare kitchen capacity.

Are you using a Restaurant loyalty campaign for your online orders?  Our Free Restaurant OnLine Ordering system (FROLO) provides a built in loyalty campaign that works really well to increase the frequency of customer purchases.  FROLO supports a receipt printer, SMS notifications and even a mobile orders management system.

Drive your customers to Order Direct and Save!

It's good for customers and great for you! :)

Oohbah Butler is a journalist who writes for Vice.  He used to be employed to write fake reviews on Tripadvisor, getting paid £10 for each review.  He had concerns about the impact that the fake reviews were having, so he created a crappy website for the Shed at Dulwich, a restaurant that only existed on the High Street of his mind and started getting his friends to write reviews for it.

In April 2017 - he set up the Restaurant and it is appointment only.  His menu was based on emotions.  He went from  being ranked 18,000 to the top 1,500 restaurants in a couple of months.

The phone starts to ring (he bought a burner phone for the restaurants).  He often didn't answer the phone, so people were thinking that they were very successful.  Nothing gets a queue like a queue!  If he did answer the phone, he said they were booked out for 6 weeks and hang up,

August - number 156.  The restaurant is getting job applications.

Gets the restaurant to number 30.  There are people looking in the street for where it is.

Tripadvisor contacts him and they are the number 1 restaurant on Tripadvisor.  

Oohbah decides to go to the next level, so he opens the restaurant for a night.  Have a listen to find out how the opening night goes.

His experiment was to see if a Fake Restaurant could be popular on Tripadvisor.  

There are important lessons for Restaurants about how platforms like Tripadvisor can be gamed and also how you can use demand management to your advantage.

This is also an example of the Emporer's new Clothes.  

This also highlights the issues with the Tripadvisor algorithm and just how it doesn't work.  I've given up on Tripadvisor because of the number of Restaurants I've been to that are rally highly rated on Tripadvisor, but the Restaurant turns out to be awful.  

There is a significant difference between Google and Facebook ratings and there could be an issue with people not given their real details making the reviews.

Oohbah's story on the Shed at Dulwich went viral when he came clean with what he had done.  

We also look at the the viral marketing from the White Moose Cafe and how their response created a different kind of viral response.  Their approach is a lot riskier, but highly effective for them.  

Our advice is to avoid Yelp entirely.  It has very expensive marketing campaigns that some restaurants have found to be nearly useless.

Woo Hoo! You've just done a weeks' worth of Restaurant Marketing.

Find out what works and what doesn't with your Restaurant Marketing plan.

Email Marketing - The simplest and cheapest way to fill a Restaurant on a Midwinter's Tuesday night

Facebook is pay to play now. This is a great thing. The budgets are low, the returns are high.

Some sites change every week, some haven't changed since 2002

When did you last post to your Restaurant's Facebook page?

The Menu is the critical in most restaurants, it is part sales, part marketing, part art, part science, and part soul and part passion - yet so few people work to improve it.