Day 362 – After Holiday Season Lull

The holiday season is a busy time for bar and restaurants and it might not be the best time to approach bar owners with our service. January might be considered a bit of a lull time for the industry, but not for BEVINCO franchisees’. This is when bar owners will have a few more minutes to sit down with you to discuss our service and get ready for busier times with students back for the next semester, valentine’s day and some might even be thinking about summer patio season soon, so now is the time.

Day 356 – New Year, New Planning, New Budgets

It’s January and bar owners are reviewing profits or lack thereof for the previous year. This is the time to get out there and make your presence known. Everyone makes new year’s resolutions, trying to improve on the year before, whether its losing weight or making more money, in January everyone is evaluating the year before and trying to figure out how to improve. Pick up the phone, send some emails, knock on doors or send out a new mail out, just make sure BEVINCO is considered when new fiscal plans are being developed.

Holiday Cheers to all!

Day 317 – Is There a Minimum Sales Volume?

My first answer is maybe. It really comes down to a cost benefit analysis. The industry average for losses is 20%, due to over pouring, theft etc. Just as an example, if you were to have sales of $1000 per week, the bar owner would experience losses of $200 per week (on average). If you charged $200 per audit each week and were able to eliminate the losses then the bar would break even, which might not be much of an advantage (however, we do provide several other value add services beyond reducing losses). So some would say that would be the minimum, however, if the bar has only 2 beers on tap, 4 brands of bottled beer and just rail liquor, then you can look at other pricing options to make the service more cost effective. Because the sales volume is low, the on-hand stock is low, you could likely audit every 2 weeks or maybe monthly. With such a small bar the audit price could also be lowered because your audit time will also be significantly lower. If the bar is on route to another client, this could also make it more financially viable for you. There will be instances where it just doesn’t make financial sense, but just some things to consider when prospecting for new clients.

Day 314 – Qualifying a Potential Bar

A mistake that can easily be made is to pass over on an opportunity because you think the bar is not a good candidate for the BEVINCO service. Every bar as long as they sell liquor, wine or beer can be a good candidate. There are several criteria that can be used to qualify a bar: liquor sales and volume, demographics of the patrons and bar tenders, location, type of establishment and others just to name a few. But typically it is some combination of these criteria that qualify a bar as a good candidate for the BEVINCO service. A good start to qualifying the bar is to research them and understand their business, stop in and check it out, talk to the bartenders as a patron just to get an understanding of their business. I have long standing clients that have used BEVINCO for several years and I would have never thought they were a good candidate at first glance, but a closer look at their operation revealed otherwise. Don’t assume a bar isn’t a good fit until you have information to tell you otherwise.

Day 310 – Top 10 Target List

With any business it is always good to generate a Top 10 target list. These 10 targets are usually the big fish in town, or in our case the hottest bars in your territory. They might be the biggest bar, the most popular, the “IT” spot, or have huge liquor volumes, or maybe simply have been a main stay in the city for last 20 years. My recommendation when starting out as a new BEVINCO franchisee is to generate this list, write them down, fold the paper, and promptly file it away in a drawer. You only get one shot, and when starting out you will make mistakes, from your sales pitch, to your pricing, and should you land the client, the last thing you want is have a “Top 10” client be used as a learning experience.

Day 302 – Providing Support to Bar Owners, beyond Counting Bottles

Six months ago I spoke about the benefits of BEVINCO for a bar owner when they are going through a tax audit. Recently a client of mine was working through a PST (provincial sales tax) audit that are frequently experienced in the hospitality industry. A snag was encountered when the auditor asked for supporting documentation to back up the waste numbers being claimed. With little effort on my part I was able to provide the owner with weekly data from the past year showing sales vs. usage which was successfully used to support during the audit and make the whole audit process go smoothly. This is a great example on how we can provide great value above and beyond just reducing liquor and beer losses and also helps retain them as a long term client.