If you're a restaurant owner, you've probably heard the term "rapid restaurant growth." It refers to how fast your business can grow from one location to several locations — usually in just a few years. The concept is widely misunderstood, but it's not impossible to achieve if you take the right steps along the way. Here are some tips for handling rapid restaurant growth:
Set a vision
As a small business owner, you might be tempted to keep your eyes on the prize and work as hard as possible to achieve that vision.
However, you must set goals for yourself so that your team knows what they're working towards. You'll also want them to know what success looks like once you've reached your goal—and how they can help contribute along the way!
This will help everyone stay motivated and accountable while also allowing them time off when needed without feeling guilty about taking care of personal needs.
Hire like-minded people
When you hire, look for people who share your vision. Find employees who are passionate about their jobs and see the restaurant as a way of life, not just a job. Hire people willing to learn new things and adapt quickly to changes in technology or customer preferences.
You should also choose people who have a similar work ethic as yours: if one person is too laid back while another is more aggressive, it can cause problems down the road when working under pressure during busy periods (or even just around guests).
After you have hired your staff, it’s important to make sure they know what is expected of them. Make sure every new employee has a clear understanding of their job description and what type of personality fits best in each position.
Use software
If you want to grow your restaurant but don’t have a lot of time or resources, the software can help you manage your team, inventory, and finances. The proper application will ensure all of your employees know where they stand with each other and where their responsibilities lie.
You'll also have access to some great tools that help with organization and efficiency at the restaurant level. For example:
- Online Ordering – A restaurant online ordering system worthy of your brand. Fully customizable with branding and menu images. Allow customers to order delivery, takeout, and curbside pickup directly from your restaurant.
- Loyalty Program – A customizable restaurant loyalty program will help you turn guests into regulars and reward them for all of the ways they interact with your brand!
- Mobile Apps – A white-label app for your restaurant that is built from the ground up as a native mobile app, meaning load times, animations, and general responsiveness are state-of-the-art.
- Automatic Upsells – The recommendations engine applies machine learning to suggest upsells autonomously and cross-sells as guests checkout via the restaurant app or branded web ordering.
- CDP & Analytics – You own the guest relationship as well as the data. The CDP analyzes your guests' accounts daily and allows you to set up restaurant marketing campaigns that are automatically triggered based on events, thresholds, or actions.
Work with a business coach
A business coach can help you stay on track, set goals and achieve them, make better decisions and maintain balance in your life.
A business coach is someone who provides sound advice about how to grow a business so that it becomes sustainable for the long term. In other words, they’re there to help guide you through the process of increasing your restaurant organization to make sure it continues long after they’ve left their position as coach or advisor.
Outsource non-essentials
If you have a lot of non-essentials in your business, it can be tempting to keep them all in-house. This is a mistake; outsource it if something isn't adding value to your restaurant.
For example, your company's website is outdated and requires an upgrade. You don't want to spend time updating the site when so many other things need doing first—like hiring new staff or investing in new equipment—but outsourcing the work will improve its appearance and performance while keeping overhead costs down.
There needs to be a path to restaurant growth.
There are no right or wrong ways to grow a restaurant business. There are, however, many different strategies that can be used to achieve growth.
For example:
- Customer service—By developing relationships with your customers and being responsive to their needs and desires, you'll build loyalty among your customers. This will make them more likely to recommend your restaurant over competitors' offerings.
- Product development—If you want to expand beyond serving just one type of cuisine or food type (for example), then it might be useful for you to invest some money into developing new products that aren't currently offered at all by other local restaurants in order not only attract new guests but also provide value-added services such as catering services or delivery options.
- Marketing—Marketing is a critical component of growing a restaurant business. If you want to attract new customers and increase sales, then you need to advertise your restaurant. This can be done through traditional media such as newspapers, magazines, radio, and television ads or social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
The key point here is that you can’t let rapid growth in your restaurant throw you off your game. If you can keep up with this kind of expansion, then it will be easy for you to handle the next step: building out more locations or expanding into new markets.
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