Boost Your Chances Of Success By Hiring A Restaurant Consultant

Anyone who has a little money and a dream can open a new restaurant. But the question is whether you can sustain it – do you have the technical skills and expertise to run a restaurant business?

You’re in big trouble if you don’t. In the long run you might end up losing more money than you make.

Which is why I recommend you to hire a restaurant consultant. I’ve seen too many friends who had to struggle their way out of debts and business loans just because they took the idea of hiring a consultant for granted. So I’ll break it to you now: don’t play cheap and hire a restaurant consultant.

Here are five strong reasons why you should hire a consultant.

1.    Hiring a restaurant consultant helps you save money. How? He or she prevents you from wasting it. It is a restaurant consultant’s job to help with quality planning so you don’t run into something unexpected.

2.    A restaurant consultant is responsible for conducting a feasibility study. Competition and other barriers to your success will stick out like a sore thumb when a feasibility study is done right. This is very important in the early stages of the restaurant business.

3.    A restaurant consultant helps your business become more profitable by providing third-party feedback. Like an artist who finds it difficult to criticize his own work, a restaurant owner should seek the advice of a consultant regarding design concept, theme, in-house operations, etc.

4.    restaurant consultants are invaluable in the hiring process. Face it: your staff and employees are the heart and soul of your business. So you only want to hire the best, and it is a consultant’s job to help you with that every step of the way.

5.    A restaurant consultant can help you get lower prices on your raw ingredients. After all it’s their job to help new restaurant owners get started. So it’s only natural they know how to negotiate with vendors, or else recommend you to someone they know.

A restaurant consultant is indispensable. If you think you’re throwing away money which could otherwise have gone to buy an extra table or a chair, think again. An extra table won’t help you to run the business smoothly. But a restaurant consultant can show you the ropes so customers keep coming back, even if it’s just to order take-out.

What do you say about restaurant consultants? Share tips by leaving a comment below.

If You Don’t Hire A Restaurant Consultant Now, You’ll Hate Yourself Later

I know some people who’d started their restaurant business without taking the services of an outside consultant. They said they wanted to save the money that would otherwise go to the consultant, or else use it to buy an additional table or a coat rack. A couple months later, the business fell apart like a house of cards.

Simply put, a consultant is essential to the development of a restaurant establishment. This phase is where you lay down the foundations of the business. If you get this wrong, you get everything wrong.

I’ll point out some of the basics.

1.    Do you want to become part of a franchise or go it alone? Any restaurant owner will tell you that this is a crucial decision. Aside from electronics, foodservice happens to be one of the most dependent when it comes to franchise names and brands.

For example, everyone knows applying for a McDonald’s franchise isn’t cheap and by no means an easy task. But if you do however get the green light, then congratulations, you just killed your financial problems for life. An experience restaurant consultant can help you decide whether to open an established franchise or start your own based on your current budget and expertise.

2.    You need outside assistance to help you consolidate a business plan. Admit it, this is your dream restaurant. You must be very proud of your new business. But thing is you might get a little too emotional when it comes to making hard decisions, and right decisions at this time is all that matters.

For a business to work long-term, you need to produce a high quality feasibility study backed by raw data, and later a solid business plan that would put the pieces of your workflow operations together. I suggest you hire a consultant for this one—that is, unless you have an MBA in business administration.

3.    A business is only as strong as its weakest employee. So when it comes to hiring staff to work for you, no amount of fees is too much for the services of an experienced consultant who specializes in this area. A restaurant consultant can fill you in on the employment law, help you draft employee policies, training and other tasks, such as staff scheduling.

Consultants are also helpful in getting you started in talks with vendors both foreign and local.

An outside consultant is responsible to work with you only for a few sessions, but the results are long-term. If you really love your business, if you really want to make this thing work, take my advice and hire a restaurant consultant to help you get down the basics of running your dream restaurant.

What Everybody Ought To Know About Restaurant Menu Designs

In my previous article, I talked about restaurant design being the face of your business, the first link to communicating with your customers. So okay. After impressing them with your interior designs, what’s next? They sit down at one of your tables and begin to order, and this is where restaurant menu design comes in.

Big things come from small beginnings.

The next key ingredient to a successful restaurant marketing plan is a great restaurant menu design. It shows your eating personality, establishes your budget, and embeds your brand firmly in the customer’s mind.

Here’s what you need to know about restaurant menu design.

Q: What’s the purpose of a good restaurant menu design?
A: Simply put, your restaurant menu design represents your restaurant and its services. It’s like your restaurant is saying, “This is who we are and what we can offer you.”

Aside from the staff, the restaurant menu design is also a way to convey your personality to the customer, dine-in or take out. A great restaurant menu design creates an impression that stays in the customer’s mind long after the waiter or waitress walks off with it.

Q: What do I need to know before I go designing my restaurant menu?
A: Nothing good ever comes out of not doing research before engaging in any business practice. Especially in the foodservice industry.

You need to conduct research, a feasibility study, before you can start to even think about your restaurant menu design. Begin by looking at your own numbers, such as budget and prospective financial goals. Then consider your competitors. Analyze their websites and menu prices and their way of doing business. The saying goes, “Keep your friends close…”

Around 80% of any restaurant’s business comes from residents within a 10-minute drive to your location. Remember this, and then ask yourself these questions.

• What can I offer customers that other businesses in the area don’t?
• What dishes do I have in common with other restaurants in the area? Are my dishes superior?
• Are my prices just right?
• Am I offering more menu variety than others?

These factors should put you in the right frame of mind in creating your restaurant menu design.

Q: Can you give me tips on how to design my menu?
A: Of course! This is why I’m here, writing this article, in the first place.

As the restaurant operator, you should have a pretty clear picture which dishes sell the most on any given day. Put all of them on the Manager’s Choice or Chef’s Recommendations part of the menu. This is usually on the first page of the restaurant menu design, where the customer brings his or her eyes to first and gets the most attention.

Use pictures, labels and boxes to highlight signature dishes.

I don’t know if this needs saying, but arrange your menu items in columns, not rows. Putting everything in one column exhibits sophistication, two columns shows a sense of playfulness, etc.

Making a restaurant business work is no easy task. You need a little bit of everything—management skills, ample leadership traits, good chefs and an even better team, and lots of luck—if you want to be able to make a name in this industry.

A well-run restaurant is like a winning baseball team. It makes the most of every crew member’s talent and takes advantage of every split-second opportunity to speed up service.

David Ogilvy.

Start by getting your restaurant menu design right.

Top Three Reasons Why You Must Hire A Restaurant Consultant

Hiring a restaurant consultant is one of the biggest early decisions you need to make as a restaurant operator.

I know how it feels. I’ve been in that situation. Here you are, trying to put up a restaurant business and hoping everything turns out okay, and already you’re faced with a choice to hire someone who may or may not be an asset in the long run. These are times even I wished I was clairvoyant.

Anyway I’ll let the facts do the talking. Here are three reasons why it’s a good idea to hire a restaurant consultant.

1. It helps you out long term
restaurant consultants don’t go for free. When you hire one, that person goes into the payroll, something that turns off restaurant operators just starting out. Here’s my advice: don’t worry about it and just hire yourself a good restaurant consultant.

Restaurant consultants are important, because quality pre-planning, something these guys are good at, helps in preventing your business from running into something unexpected in the future. A good restaurant consultant is here to save you money long term. Remember that.

2. They help with staffing
A restaurant is only as good as the staff body that manages it. If your chefs can’t put their hearts into their dishes even if their lives depended on it, or else the waiters are more impatient than the customers they serve, your business will never take off.

Restaurant consultants, on the other hand, they are familiar with hiring, training and establishing staff policies, as well as the employment laws in your area. They can also help you figure out the best scheduling for your staffs while working around a budget.

3. Consultants will get your restaurant open
Hiring a restaurant consultant guarantees you’ll get your restaurant open no matter what. They’re here to guide you every step of the way - from conducting feasibility studies to fishing out good applicants to helping you organize and price your menu.

In the beginning the crucial thing is to get your business off the ground, and it’s restaurant consultants that provide services to help you with just that.

The pros of hiring a restaurant consultant easily outweighs the cons. Don’t worry about the money. The fees pay for themselves over time. The important thing is to get your restaurant business up and running by hiring someone to turn your ideas into real business solutions.

Don’t let your investments go to waste. Consider hiring a restaurant consultant.