Make More Money This Holiday Season (Without More Marketing)
Whether you’re surrounded by snow banks or palm trees, this holiday season will share one characteristic around the United States: it will be busy. And whether you’re as busy as you’d like to be or not, whatever size holiday crowd you have can bring you more money (without additional marketing dollars).
Maximize the guest experience in your restaurant by energizing your team with waitstaff training and incentives programs. The busier your servers get, the easier it is to become an order taker instead of a salesperson. Here are a few games you can play this season to make everyone happier… your guests, your team and your accountant!
- Float some cash. Get a $20 bill and pick a profitable add-on item, like a special appetizer. Then, give the $20 bill to the first person to sell your featured item. The first to sell two of the items takes control of the 20. The first to sell three gets it from the one who sold two… on and on until the end of the shift. The person who has the money at the end of the shift keeps the cash.
- Make it perfect. The goal of every salesperson on your team should always be to have a perfect guest check. For most, that tab includes an appetizer, a beverage, an entrée, a dessert and a coffee or after-dinner drink. When servers consistently sell throughout a meal, these perfect guest checks are easy to achieve. The problem is that many servers take orders instead of make suggestions. During the holiday season when everyone wants to splurge, start a running pool of perfect tabs. The winner at the end of each week wins a small prize, keeping the momentum building for the grand prize winner at the end of the season.
- Get lucky. Unwind your bar’s cash register or computer tape and write “You Win!” at random places. Then, explain that when a server’s drink order prints out the winning message, he or she gets a small prize. The more drinks they sell, the better chance they have to win.
Why Server Training Contests Don’t Work (And How Yours Can)
You’re giving away an iPod, airline miles, movie tickets, or free gas for a month… it’s exactly what your servers said they wanted as prizes and yet your waitstaff training contests are still failing. You’re out of ideas, cash, and patience and your sales still aren’t where you wanted them to be. What’s happening?
Check out these five top reasons server sales training contests fail… and learn what you can do to avoid the same fate:
- Your server training sessions weren’t effective. Sales contests are often good indicators of the success of your waitstaff training programs. When servers have been effectively trained to sell, they’re already motivated to use what they’ve learned. Your sales contests are just the added push to reach new goals.
- You’ve made it too difficult. If your contest goal is too difficult to be reasonably attained by most of the participants, your contest is destined to fail. If, for instance, a goal is to raise checks an average of $5 a person, many servers will feel they have to be “pushy” to sell that much more. Consequently, they’ll skip the whole contest to avoid the daily frustration. Instead, set your sights slightly lower and break it down for servers: a $3 per person check increase is one more soft drink every other customer or an appetizer split by two couples.
- You made it too long. We’re a society that loses interest quickly. Contests should never exceed 30 days. Shorter-time periods (with smaller prizes) are almost always more successful than long-term programs.
- You got bored in the middle. Or maybe just your servers did, because they have no idea how it’s going. Inspect, check and review each server’s progress daily, if possible, but at least weekly. Post new results every Monday morning, encourage those succeeding and coach or re-train those who are falling behind.
- You rewarded the best server (for the fourth time in a row). Sure, Sally Super Server deserves to win: she consistently outsells everyone. But what about the other servers who are continually improving? Reward those that exceed their personal best every week and remember this rule of thumb: every sales contest should offer some type of reward for at least 60 percent of the servers involved.
Turn Slackers into High Performers
We’ve all heard of the 80/20 rule: Your superstars generate the most sales and profits. Even if it’s not so dramatic in the restaurant industry, aside from your “A” players, the key to your success is your “B” players. This group typically makes up about 50 percent of your crew. To run your restaurant successfully, you need to have the B players improve their performance. They can do the job, but don’t always seem to perform at a high enough level.
Each day when they arrive, they ask: “Who’s closing tonight?” If a manager who expects little is on duty, this group gives little. Make sure every manager has high standards, demands plenty from each and every staff member and makes it a point to reward and recognize their “B” employees when they perform at the higher level. Ultimately, it’s the guests who benefit. Using effective incentives will ensure that both your A and B players live up to your expectations and you’ll have 75 percent to 80 percent of your employees doing exactly what you want—delivering outstanding service. The others? Maybe they should go work for your competition
Seasonal Restaurant Sales: How to Make Your Servers Care
During the holidays, you and your team have countless opportunities to maximize sales. With the steady stream of diners and the feeling of goodwill and gluttony (it’s no surprise that most Americans gain at least five pounds during the season), it’s the perfect time to motivate your team members to sharpen their sales skills. Here are a few incentives to get them started:
- Offer “most sold” prizes for categories: Select categories—gift cards, appetizers, special entrées, etc.—and offer awards for the most sold throughout the shift. Prizes can include iTunes gift cards, CDs, movie passes, etc. Then, the winners of each night are thrown into a drawing for a grand prize (an iPod, cell phone, even a TV) and then have the drawing during your holiday party for added excitement.
- Create holiday splurges: Work with your chef to create combinations that can be positioned as special, seasonal dishes or pairings. Appetizer sampler plates, trio-martini fleets, slice-of-heaven dessert tastings are all ways to make the holidays seem more celebratory while increasing sales.
- Spread the love (or at least, the prizes): Offer sales incentives to everyone who sells a gift card. Remind your team that we’re all in the sales business. Those who answer the phone, pack the to-go boxes, and deliver are all employees who can suggest and sell gift cards. Even the people who don’t have direct contact with guests can sell to family, friends, neighbors, their kids’ schools, etc. And when those salespeople receive “commissions,” it’s a happier season for everyone!
Product Knowledge: You Can’t Sell What You Don’t Know!
It’s not enough for your employees to simply know their products. They also have to use that product knowledge. The Top This! contest gives employees an opportunity to do just that — before they hit the floor. Here’s how it works.
What You’ll Need
- Prizes for the winning team.
- Selected menu items to feature in the contest.
Getting Started
Before your pre-shift meeting, select several menu or bar items you want to feature in the Top This! contest, and write their names on a piece of paper.
At the meeting, split your staff into two teams, dividing the best players equally.
Have one member of each team stand face-to-face and take turns describing food items or drinks with phrases that highlight features (“They’re covered with bubbly cheese”), benefits (“They’ll go great with your beers”) and value (“They’re only $4.95). The Top This! exchange continues until one person gets stumped. For example:
Peach Pie
Contestant A: Fresh peaches!
Contestant B: Graham cracker crust!
Contestant A: Fresh whipped cream!
Contestant B: Light!
Contestant A: Fruity!
Contestant B: Only $3.50
Contestant A: Popular!
Contestant B: Refreshing!
Contestant A: Goes great with a scoop of vanilla ice cream!
Contestant B: Uhhhh…
The stumped contestant has been “seated.” The first team to seat all the members of the opposing team, or the team to seat the most opponents in a designated time period, wins. Reward the winners with lottery tickets or other small, inexpensive prizes.
Close the meeting with a discussion about the features and benefits of menu items you’d like to focus sales on for that shift.
Contests for Your Restaurant Kitchen Staff
Contests for the heart of the house can be hard to find. Here’s one designed exclusively for cooks. It’s easy to implement and can help stimulate creativity and pride among your kitchen staff. It will also benefit your menu merchandising efforts.
To pull this off, all you’ll need is a little creativity from your cooks and a prize that every cook would want. Here are the steps to put “Special Effects” into action:
- Challenge each of your cooks to create one special per week. Encourage them to be cost-effective, but allow them to be imaginative. That way they’ll put a lot of pride in the dishes they prepare.
- Run the Special Effects contest for as many weeks as you have cooks, keeping track of whose special sold the most. Announce the winner after every cook has taken a turn, with the cooks and their specials scheduled in a rotation.
- Ask your cooks what kind of prize would please them the most (within reason, of course), and award the winning cook that prize.
Waitstaff Training Incentive Earns Big Tips
To sell is to serve. To serve is to sell. If your servers and bartenders can grasp this concept, they’ll go far in this business. Once they get the hang of it, they’ll be ready for the Big Tips contest.
All you’ll need to get started is a notepad to keep track of running tip totals and prizes for those who receive the most 20% tips.
To get started, use a pre-shift team meeting to explain to your staff how exceptional service naturally leads to higher sales and more cash in their pockets. Seek feedback on this subject, bouncing ideas back and forth on how to better serve your guests. Afterward, announce the Big Tips contest.
The rules are simple: The servers and bartenders who show the most 20% tips on credit-card slips at the end of the shift win. Structure the contest so there are several winners. You might have first-, second- and third-place finishers. You could even give out a special prize for the person who earns the biggest tip.
For a more waitstaff training and incentive ideas, click here to check out Playing Games at Work: 52 Best Incentives, Contests and Rewards for the Hospitality Industry.
Making the Grade: Reward Student Employees
It’s a fact of restaurant life that a large number of employees are working their way through school. So why not use their academic goals to enhance your service and sales goals? The Making the Grade incentive is a good place to start. Here’s all you need to do:
- If you don’t know already, find out which of your employees are going to school — high school, trade school, college, anything.
- Meet with your student/employees and propose a bonus of $0.25 for every hour worked during the semester — provided they maintain a specific GPA.
- Draw up an agreement for those who want to participate and have each person sign it.
- At the end of the semester, present student/employees with their bonus checks and certificates of achievement — and do it with some fanfare at an all-staff meeting. Consider making the checks payable to the school they attend (or plan to attend in the case of high schoolers heading off to college).
Excerpted from Playing Games at Work: 52 Best Incentives, Contests and Rewards for the Hospitality Industry. Click here to read more.
