Frustrated with some clients

Today I had a chance to visit with two clients that own restaurants. June has been a very tough month for may local restaurateurs. Blame it on the economy. The hot weather. Competition.
In any case, sales are down. Expenses are up. And the future is not looking too bright. One client is seriously looking at closing down their second location just opened a few months ago.

What struck me is the fact that both clients are very good operators. They know the restaurant business. What they don't seem to know or realize is that when times are tough it is time to look at some creative ways to get more business in the door. Both business' were gold mines for some cheap marketing and promotions that in my humble opinion could really make a difference in combating their weakening sales. Sometimes I feel that I am stating the obvious. Things like better signage. Birthday club promotions. Recession specials. Passing out menus to neighbors. Loyal diner club cards. Mailing newsletter to their customers are things that successful businesses are doing to be successful in this tougher business climate. Your customers are not going to accidentally fall into your place of business. You have to give them a compelling reason to do business with you. And you have to tell them your story. Why doing business with you is better than doing it with your competitor down the street.

Sometimes we are so stuck doing the things that we do in our business, that we forget about the most important job we have as small business owners. I call this phase of business ownership doing it, doing it, doing it. Not seeing the forest despite the trees. We work those long hours, for less money, and forget about why we got into business for the first place...to give us more life. We get stuck in the rut of doing it, not realizing that we should be focusing first and foremost on the financial health of our business, which is almost solely dependent on the marketing of our business.

The one job we should never delegate or forget is that we are responsible for the marketing of our business. Each and every day we should be working on how to market our business to our existing and potential clients. The only way we can ever achieve our goal is shake the tyranny of doing it and start to manage our business the way successful small business owners do. These successful business owners focus on their business, and look for ways to move out of the production end, and become the managers of their successful enterprise.