Market Your New Store BEFORE Opening

New merchant and restaurant owners make up the majority of new small business owners as they seek to pursue and share their passions with their patrons. As a first time business owner of a retail store or restaurant, it can be a thrilling and exciting experience planning for your grand opening, however getting customers to come rushing in the doors during the first few months can be a challenge.

First things first...
You should be marketing your business in the community you are opening long before you even open. It takes time for consumers to hear about a new business and the sooner you can begin marketing to the local consumer network the more consumes will know about you when you actually do open your stores. As with any business, it is important to communicate your unique value proposition.

Why should local consumers care about your new business? 

What makes it better than what else is already in the neighborhood and what reasons are you giving local patrons for coming to your retail store or restaurant?

The biggest factor of success for many restaurants and retail stores is of course location. Foot traffic in a city can be the lifeline for many businesses as can a great location in a suburban area that is anchored by other big name stores that create local traffic from the surrounding neighborhoods. However, a good location does not guarantee high in-store traffic. You can expect a different response from a consumer who walks by your new store, but has never heard of you compared to a consumer who heard about you through your pre-opening marketing. Consumers have a higher likelihood of coming into your place of business when they have become familiar with your name.

The old, traditional way of trying to build awareness and encourage patronage at a new retail store or restaurant was through good old newspaper advertising. Every one use to read the newspaper, meaning you would get a lot of eyeballs on your advertisement and the hope was that you could convert readers into customers. Today's challenge with traditional print advertising is that newspaper readership is dropping and print ads for new businesses are not a great way of generating new customers.

Rather, local events or direct mailers are a better way to create buzz about your store opening. When you advertise, you can't measure anything about your advertisement or collect customer information.

However, sending a direct mailer to all the local addresses with a VIP grand opening invitation with 25% off might just do the trick. You can require each customer to bring in the VIP voucher to redeem in-store and since each voucher has the customers name and address on the back, you are now able to collect vital information about your new customers so you can follow-up.

Have fun with it and include your staff when it comes to being creative with enticing customers to your store.

What has worked for you? Do you have a creative idea that would help others get a head-start on their new business?

Motivate Your Employees and Increase Morale

Being a restaurant manager is hard enough when your staff is fired up and running on all cylinders. But what about those times when morale is a little down, or business has slacked off? How can a restaurant manager motivate their employees to rally? Here's three quick techniques you can put in to practice that will help you become the restaurant manager everyone wants to work for.

Tips to Motivate Your Employees

Don't be afraid to "get a little dirty".
Get out of the office. Be "hands on". Bus a few tables. Hop on the line every now and then. Check in with the dishwashers and help run a few racks. Just because you're the restaurant manager, that doesn't give you a free pass to hide in the office all day. You'd be surprised how many times I've bussed an empty table rather than tracking down the server or busser responsible for that duty, only to find three or four other employees immediately offer to help or take over. The ripple effect also causes host/hostesses to wipe glass and brass, bartenders to polish glasses, etc.

Don't be afraid to work alongside your employees. They will respect you for it and work harder for you if they see you "in the trenches" with them.

Recognize your employees.
You are the restaurant manager and your employees work for you. How much do you appreciate the job they do? If a guest comments that they had a wonderful time to you on their way out the door, pay attention to who the server was and let them know what the customer had to say. Did the food runner help clean up a server spill? Thank them for doing so.

Your employees do little things every day that are above or outside of their normal job descriptions. Thoughtful acknowledgment of their actions from the restaurant manager will go a long ways towards motivating them to keep pitching in.

Ask questions.
Don't be afraid to ask your employees questions and encourage feedback and input. Just because you are the restaurant manager doesn't automatically crown you "king know-it-all". Depending on how long you've been a restaurant manager, it's probably been a while since you waited tables for eight-hours straight, or spent an entire evening in the dish pit. Keep in touch with your employees and solicit feedback on how their jobs are going. 
Ask them for input on how to improve operations. Yes, you're likely to get a an extensive wish list of expensive items that are not in the budget. But you're also likely to get a few gems that you haven't thought of. Maybe the coffee maker would be better "over there". If you strike upon a good idea with an employee, enlist their resources to implement it. If Suzy suggested a more efficient place for the coffee maker, give her ownership of the operation. You'll be surprised how well employees respond if given "ownership" over their situation.

These are just a few techniques that you, the restaurant manager, can use to motivate employees. Try putting these in practice for a week and see what results your employees respond with.

How do you motivate your employees - we'd love to hear from you below.

Point of Sale Marketing Tips

How can a good point of sale product help your business? As a business owner, your goal every day is to sell to my customers.

You probably also know that a good point of sale product can help you with that. The point of sale, if you aren’t sure, is wherever your customer goes in order to pay for items or services. The point of sale could be on the internet, in a retail location, or sitting across from one another at a lunch table. You will find that you can get a lot of mileage out of point of sale products if you use them correctly. There are a few ideas that you should at least consider.

If you own a retail or physical location for your business, it is likely that you use a cash register, cash drawer, and printer receipt at your point of sale. If you do, you might as well make them into point of sale marketing materials. For one thing, if you place certain items you are hoping to move quickly near the cash register, customers can use change or extra money to purchase those items as a spontaneous purchase. You may find that this works best as a point of sale products if you mark them as on sale, clearance, or marked down.

For the best results on cash register point of sale products, you should also dress them up a bit. Use merchandisers like toppers or attractive dispensers. With something like that with the merchandise, it will draw a customer’s eye even if they wouldn’t have normally considered the product. A good point of sale product is one that will at least get the customer’s attention, and at most will encourage them to buy more from you.

Another tip for point of sale is to use the receipt. Use your marketing dollars to get your customers return coupons. A way to do that is to print such a coupon on the back of each customer’s receipt. The coupon should be for something on their next visit to your location. Such a coupon can encourage the return of customers in a short amount of time.

There is probably no better place to market your business than at the point of sale. There is where you can lock in return business and can make a final impression. Take the time to look at point of sale products and how they can help you to expand the success of your business.

You may be surprised at how far you can stretch your marketing dollar at the point of sale.