You’re like me,
right?
You own your own
business; maybe even two or three. So you get up early to check on what
happened last night? What was the business like? What problems or issues came
up? Who called in sick? Did the money get to the bank?
Eventually you get
so caught up IN the business that you have NO time to work ON the
business. Oh you still have time to BS, complain
and maybe even moan and groan…and rush to sure up a program because its fallen
off a bit. Feel like a guy with too few
thumbs and too many holes in your dike?
Sure you do.
That’s why I have decided
that one Sunday a month; usually the second one cause I can get to look back on
the previous month (as well as make sure that some external data I need is
available) , I take a two or three hour time out. (If you go to church on Sunday, then do this
on Saturday.)
During This Time
Out I Review Five Key Areas:
1. Sales
2. Competition
3. External
Forces
4. Test
New Ideas
5. Process
SALES:
Can I spot any trends
in my sales by program, by day, by time, by shift? Has there been a change in food or beverage product
sales?
What’s different
over the last month compared to last year same month, previous one or two
months and by cycle?
Now the one piece
of data you MUST have, to do this analysis is you must know the number of
games bowled. Too, too many of you
do not track games. You cannot,
absolutely cannot understand your business today if you do not have that
number. It is the “hub of all analysis. If you don’t have that number how can
you measure your per line rate for open play, league play, food, beverage,
shoes.
With this information
you now have a global perspective of my sales as well as a macro view because you
have drilled down pretty far to find out what is working and what isn’t working.
If you just have
the dollars and you raised your price over last year, then your price increase
could be hiding a lineage drop. How
would you know?
COMPETITION:
I like to get
sales data for my metro area (city, town, etc) on entertainment and leisure
dollars spent in the previous month.
You can Google
this information or you can get it from the local chamber of commerce. I like to see if more dollars were spent that
month or less and if restaurants, movies etc reported more dollars or less
dollars spent than the previous month or compared to the same month last year.
It may take you a
little time to find this, but wouldn’t you like to know why your “entertainment
business is off while other entertainment businesses are up?
I also like to
visit other bowling centers. (I usually do this after my mid-morning bagel and
coffee run).
I check what new
things they are doing? What does their website look like; what new social media
things have they done on Facebook, You Tube, Pinterest etc.
Is there anything
they are doing that I can learn from?
Then I check out some of my proprietor friends who I know are good
operators in other states and see what they are doing.
More information yields
more analysis which equals more new ideas or improvement on existing ideas.
TEST 1-2-3
Now I have lots of new information; maybe when I look at
my website home page I can use this information to test some new ideas; maybe put
something new on my home page; get a new landing page; and test some new offers.
PROCESS
I try to pick one
process that will hopefully move the sales needle; maybe its customer service. I write down what I think are the 4 or 5 most
frequently asked questions we get on a phone call and then draft a response for
everyone to use when those types of calls come in.
Frequent questions might be
things like:
·
Do you have any specials?
·
Are there available lanes?
·
Can you give me information about birthday
parties?
·
When does your cosmic bowling start?
·
Can you tell me about accompany party/group
outing or family reunion program?
After writing down
the answers I remind myself to meet with the staff and see if they have other
questions that are more frequent than the ones I wrote down. We then go over
the answers and agree that we will answer the questions according to the “script”. I then tell the staff that I will have
friends test the program by calling the center, not to catch them doing something
bad, but to give them feedback on how to improve on future calls.
By the time I’m
finished its football time and I can settle back in my recliner knowing that I have
spent 3 or 4 solid hours working ON my business and not IN it.
It’s a great feeling.
All of these things
are so important for your business to grow…so set aside a Sunday or Saturday
once a month and “get ‘er done.”
