KeyAdvantage Blog

Grow Your Own Revisited

nospam@example.com (Kim Payne) — 2009-05-31T07:45:09Z

Earlier in the year I wrote about the importance of planning to ensure an abundance of produce i n your kitchen garden (or even the sucess your business)

Business can learn from gardening

The plan that our family came up with for our patch has worked well. All of the hard work in the cold and damp days of February and March has paid off. Seeds have germinated, some transplanted on to become even BIGGER plants other left where they are maturing quietly without any further attention apart from the odd watering and of course some gentle weed control.

Thoughts now move to what we need to do inthe garden later in the summer to make sure we have :
1. The odd bit of fresh, tasty winter veg. to help us through the long darki nights.
2. Made preparations to ensure early spring fare in 2010

Meantime guess what I am doing.
Correct dear reader relaxing in this minor heatwave (it was 32 C on our South facing patio yesterday) and enjoying our garden and its produce every day.

Do you know I think the hospitality industry could learn a bit about planning from Adam the Gardener and the old Sunday Express picture guide to gardening....

Any room for Hotel and Restaurant gardeners out there?

Looking back is the way forward

nospam@example.com (Kim Payne) — 2009-05-30T08:49:16Z

Its tough in this time of recession and market downturn.

Looking back to go forward - if you know what I mean.

Thinking back to previous downturns in business caused by our friends in America sneezing, global events or the economic climate.

Take a hard look at that marketing plan
The best course of action is to stand back and take a good hard look at what you are doing right now. Review your marketing plan, what works, what doesnt, who are your customers,and if you can get your GM out of his office, get the hotel business plan reviewed.

1. Make sure you are converting ALL enquiries ( to hec with rates)
2. Sell more to existing customers - in house promotions
3.Bring back old customers - why did they go elsewhere? Solve their problems and get them back.
4. Last. Find new customers. Lets face it you probably dont have the budget for this so concentrate on the first three.

Not sure how you should be reviewing your market plan. Well we know people who do..........

Cut Your Price,Cut Your Quality,Cut Your Throat

nospam@example.com (Kim Payne) — 2009-05-05T10:56:34Z

Shifting Markets

I spotted a couple of chalkboards on the pavement outside local restaurants over the weekend. The first one read:

"Cut price 3 Course Lunch
Only £4.50
Open 12 - 2.30"

Just along the street the second one proclaimed:

"Hungry? Thirsty, Fed up Shopping ?
You Have Walked Far Enough
Enjoy Freshly Cooked Salmon with an Ice Cold Beer
Open All Day"

The Agents FOR SALE sign was above the doorway of the first restaurant, a " no booking we are too busy" on the door of the second restaurant.

I think we all know by now that the coming summer - maybe even the coming year is going to be tough for hotels, restaurants and bars. Markets are shifting under all kinds of pressures. Camping and Self Catering is experiencing a boom. Customers are scouring the planet looking for attractive exchange rates for their holiday £ or $ and you can bet more than a few "Friends and Relatives" accommodation offers are getting called in - " you remember you said we could come and stay when we liked?"

Beware
The immediate reaction to fuel demand is to cut your price, but beware. If you cut into your cleverly calculated selling price just how far can you go before you start to not only reduce your profit margin for re-investment but also have to start making savings on staffing and before long your levels of service. Now some people will figure that they can still make the same margins and continue to employ the same number of colleagues by simply buying cheaper food to sell, scrimping on the house wine, changing the timer on the car park lights, god forbid even supplying cheaper toilet tissue. Dont.
Go on try selling instead - you know it's the right thing to do. Don't you ?

Selling at a Trade Show

nospam@example.com (Kim Payne) — 2009-04-09T21:17:05Z

The annual Visit Scotland Expo is nearly upon us. If your business has a stand then you’ve gone to a lot of expense and are taking valuable time out so you had better make sure that when you attend your business gets the best value for money.

Ok so how can you do that? Here are a few hints and tips that I have picked up over time – they are not necessarily in any order.

Continue reading "Selling at a Trade Show"

Need to Create New Wine List

nospam@example.com (Kim Payne) — 2009-04-08T10:51:11Z

"Does anyone have an outside the box - creative wine list - creative in how it is displayed or organized? It would be of great assistance" - The General Manager, The Chestnut Inn at Oquaga Lake

As I mentioned in my short reply on Linked In the layout of the wine sales document needs to sell and so does the copy. Here's a few examples of copy that sold on our old "Cherubs" wine list. Wines are listed by grape variety.

House wine - Our guests drink alot of House Wine. That enables us to buy them in great quantity and you to get ouststanding value. The House Whites are a cool, crisp French dry or a refreshing Reisling. The House Red is a warm, full bodied,consistant quality, French favourite.

Australian Cabernet - The xyz family have been producing wines in South Australia since 1843. This wine is an excellent example of their expertese. A dark ruby red, bags of spicy flavours, with a hint or orange and round curranty flavour. A powerful wine, one for the rare steaks and strong cheeses.

Chenin Blanc - France - This medium dry white wine has a very distinctive flavour. Reminiscent of country meadows, it paints a picture on your palate. A wine for artists. A great buy.

You have to make the customer read on so use a certain amount of humour.
There are key selling words that have been proved to work over and over - I'll write about them soon.

Grow Your Own

nospam@example.com (Kim Payne) — 2009-04-08T09:48:41Z

From little acorns
My wife and I are both keen gardeners and last Christmas, in the interests of the family becoming a little "greener" I bought her an excellent book written by the popular TV gardener Carol Klein. The title - "Grow your own veg journal"

So the other afternon I found myself sitting outside in the garden enjoying a refreshing cuppa and at the same time (note the multi tasking) thumbing through this book.
This book is laid out in quite an innovative way. It's basicaly a calendar of the gardening year that gives you advice month by month on the preparations that you need to make to your garden before planting up, along with seeds/plants that are best planted out at that time.

Whats different?
The difference is that this book has a page for every week for the twleve months of the year. Purpose - so you can log what you did in your garden that week and record weekly harvests as the year goes on. You can note down soil condidition, weather, type of seed, yield and other variables. What a valuable resource for next year.

Now the other day I was talking to a good friend who works in hospitality industry marketing. The people he works for took over this property some time ago. So by now you would think they woud have a good understanding of what worked and didnt work when it came to their business. Alas they have little idea, so its back to basics.

Maybe they should be taking a leaf out of this gardening book?

When do they run their promotions - when do they sow their carrots

How many rooms should I sell at a special rate - How many courgette plants do they need to feed the family?

The smaller the garden the more vital it is to have a plan, to know what has been done in the past. What works and what doesnt work
And you could maybe cut down on your carbon footprint too.
More business gardening tips to follow...................