G C R B A

Game Changing Restaurant Business Advice

[gcrba-blog]

I'll be giving a FREE gift to restaurant owners! (Any food service). A Game Changing Guide to: How to run a successful Restaurant Business. 35 Game Changing pages of Case Studies, tips from experts and much more than I consolidated in one PDF! Contact: [email protected] #businessowner #entrepreneur #chef #restaurant #restaurantowner #smallbusinessowner

[gcrba-blog]

Colossians 3:23 #businessowner #entrepreneur #christlike #scriptrue #workhard

[gcrba-blog]

Colossians 3:23 #scripture #business #workhard #godfirst #christlike #businessowners #entrepreneur

[gcrba-blog]

Are you a restaurant looking for more customers? Need some advice on how to get more? Contact: [email protected]

[gcrba-blog]

"Poor doesn't mean financial, it's a mentality" #WisdomWednesday #WordsOfWednesday #chef #entrepreneur #businessowner

[gcrba-blog]

ENCOURAGING EVENING POST: These are your chances of success...REPOST THIS!!! #motivation #success #businessowner #entrepreneur #chef #repost #repostthis #share

[gcrba-blog]

Matthew 25: 14-30, Colossians 3: 23  #motivationalmornings #scriptrue #business #entrepreneurship #smallbusinessowners

[gcrba-blog]

GOOD MORNING INSTAGRAM! I'M COMING AT YOU WITH ANOTHER MOTIVATIONAL MINUTE!!! #motivationmorning #motivation #videoclip #entreprenuer #restaurant #chef #businessowner

[gcrba-blog]

Are you a restaurant owner looking to get more customers? This video will give you 3 Game Changing Tips to get more customers and more revenue! Also there's a FREE GIFT FOR YOU!!! Link in the Bio! #restaurantowner #startupbusiness #startup #startups #chef

[gcrba-blog]

Three things that restaurant owners should be doing....Right now!

By: Bradley Hughes/Founder of GCRBA

I know being a Restaurant Owner is very time consuming and there’s a lot going on during the day.  It’s hard trying to juggle your business and try to pay attention to your customers online or in the actual restaurant it self.  So here a 3 things you could do right now to help with your sales and it takes NO TIME at all!

1. TAKE PHOTOS OF YOUR RESTAURANT

Taking attractive photos, using your iPhone or Android, of your restaurant is an actual key step into getting more customers to come to your restaurant.  Also take photos of our food.  My suggestion, take photos of your best dish (that you know sells very well) and post it on Instagram.  To see an example here are some restaurants that are killing it on social media right now: @fog_citysf , @buvetten (Located in NY) and @salvagebbq (Located in Portland, Maine). Follow them and get some ideas.  

2.  GET FEEDBACK FROM YOUR CUSTOMERS

Social media is all about conversations. You want your customers talking about your restaurant and sharing great stories about their experiences.  Make sure you maintain a presence on Facebook and Twitter to get feedback.  Most owners get paranoid about having a presence online because they fear negative comments ruining their reputation, and that makes perfect sense.  Say if you had a large presence online and you posted something but a customer complained about your service or food, wouldn’t you want to handle the situation? Even if they said rude comments if you’re a great establishment your loyal customer would defend right away. So in a way it’s a Win-Win!

3. SHARING YOUR RECIPE

Now, I know some Chefs aren’t willing to do that but, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a signature dish of yours but, If you post the recipes to one of your normal dishes or a dish that every other eateries do, you’ll increase your engagement level with them and create more of a bond with your customers. Now if you can’t do all of this, just delegate it to one of your younger staff members. But make sure they actually know what they’re doing.  Just because they’re young doesn’t mean they know.  Trust me I know 20 something years old that don’t know how to use snapchat still.  If you don’t want your staff members to do it than you would have to hire an outside source to assist you.

[gcrba-blog]

Posting a new article on my Twitter feed! Follow me (gc_rba). #twitter #restaurant #restaurantnews #business #businessadvice

[gcrba-blog]

Make sure you have a Game Changing FB AD Strategy!

BY: Bradley Hughes /Founder of  GCRBA

Restaurant Owners are huge Social Media mistakes! Mistakes that are costing them more money each day.  Did you know that 60% of new restaurants fail because of this reason (even though there are several other reasons why). 

THE SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY 

Most owners shy away from social media because they simple don’t understand it or tried it once and for them it didn’t work the way they hoped. Sometimes they’ll use their employees to do the social media for them and they have zero clue or are just as intimidated like the owner.  And you have some that feel they shouldn’t have to pay for Social Media Ads at all.  

ROI WITH SOCIAL MEDIA

Getting real ROI from social media requires actual effort.  It may seem like FB Ads is just Add a photo, add a link, and add a catchy phrase to draw customers in.  Nope! It’s more than a 1,2,3 Step task. Make sure you have goals set in place. You may want to put aside some cash and either hire an agency or someone freelancing (as long as they know what they’re doing).  Or you can hire someone to write you a playbook on how to run successful Facebook Ads. 

Another mistake restaurants or a general business may do is spend hundreds of thousands of dollars even multi-millions and have no clue as to who watched there ad, heard or even read.  T.V., Radio, and Newspaper are no longer as efficient (if at all).  I’m a living proof of that.  My other business is currently being advertised on the radio...Whoopy!! Right?....No. First of all I could only afford 6 days spread across three months.  Each month is $250....for two days! I already paid two months.  Have I gotten any customers from them...No. 2 days $250 a month and I have no clue who was listening and neither do they.  If I used my $250 for Facebook ads, I would at least reach over 2,000 people that I can target specifically for my niche.  Now you’re asking “Why did you do the Radio then?” Well because someone referred me to the radio station. I still don’t know who did it.  But I figured it would just be for one month so I didn’t mind...until they bamboozled me and said it was a non-cancelling agreement for three months.  So, I say all that to say...Radio doesn’t work when it comes to advertising.  It’s always a guess game.  Social Media allows you to target your specific audience and see who actually viewed your ad and may have clicked on your link.  

To get proper exposure on Social Media you have to invest a good amount of money.  You can either pay $5 per day (which will get you a decent exposure but not guaranteed new customers) or pay $250 and get well over 2,000 possible customers viewing and interacting with your ads. As I said before Social Media Marketing is more than just putting money into something and seeing what happens. There’s a whole lot of market funneling, customer research, defining of goals and analysis of desired outcome. Either hire someone or try to figure it out yourself by studying and putting in the work. Because Social Media is work!

[gcrba-blog]

5 Game Changing ways to Promote your Restaurant on Facebook!

By: Bradley Hughes /Founder of GCRBA

Not many Restaurants are using Facebook to it’s full potential.  Facebook is a great way to connect with your customers and increase your sales! 

Social Media is a great way to make your customers feel special and connect with your business.  Having your customers trust you and like you is very important, especially if you want them to eat at your restaurant (or food truck).

Also Social Media is very cheap (for now) it’s only $5 per day.  That’s not bad! Now, it does require your time or one of your staff members.  Growing your business through Facebook, or any social media platform, requires a lot of work and as I said before...Time.  Time is one of your most, if not the most, valuable commodities, so use it trying to grow your business. 

FACEBOOK LIVE:

Facebook Live is a great tool to use especially if you are a small restaurant owner. Now you may ask, “Why would I want to go live?” Great question! Here’s why: (1) People love to see “Behind the Scenes” of Industries or Companies either out of curiosity or actually trying to figure out who you are and what you do.  (2) You’re able to be more transparent with your customers and more vulnerable. It makes the customer feel more like a family rather than just someone that’s just a number to you.

Here’s some examples that you could do with Facebook Live:

1. You can do Cooking Tutorials

2. Virtual Tours of a new area in your restaurant or just a general tour.

3. You can introduce the staff, so when customers come to your restaurant they say “Hello” to your staff by name. (Makes it more family like)

4. You can film events or parties Live. Etc.

There’s plenty of things to do when live.....Oh! you can even have a Q&A Session!

TAKING & UPLOADING PHOTOS FROM YOUR PHONE:

Taking selfies and photos of food is still a thing.  SO, as a restaurant owner you should be taking at least 3 photos a day (one Morning, one Noon, one Night).  Consistently putting out content will keep you audience engaged. Facebook now has photo filters for your phone when you upload photos.  You can add stickers, text, doodle, etc. Make sure your photos are Fun, Entertaining, Interesting even educational.  If you think you don’t take great photos or you don’t have the best camera phone, you can always use one of your staff members.  You can organize these photos in your Google Drive or Dropbox.  Theres’ also a feature where you can schedule when you want your photos uploaded. So you don’t have to worry about stopping in the middle of doing something just to post something or take a photo.  Just choose the photo you want pick a time and date you want it to post and it’ll show up.

MAKE AN EMAIL LIST:

Email marketing is a very important tactic to being extremely successful in your business.  It’s the best way to have your customers stay up to date with whats going on and what new deals are arriving.  It also creates LOYALTY! Which is the best kind of customers. The way to go about doing that is: (1) Create a news letter (2) Getting a Mailchimp account or any other Email funnel site. (3) Create a Facebook Business Page. (4) Create a Business Manager for your FB Business Page. (5) Create a FB Ad. (6) Create a Landing page (from Landingpages.com). (7) Create a Sign Up form (on Landingpages.com) that sends them to the news letter you created. 

ENCOURAGE CUSTOMERS TO POST ABOUT YOUR RESTAURANT:

Social Media is all about conversation. You want your customers posting positive posts on their profile page and raving how great the service was or the atmosphere! Also you want them posting on your FB Business page (Fan Page).

Ask them simple questions that are engaging and has the customer feel like their voice is heard and what they say does matter.  For Example; “Do you prefer mixed beverages or straight single type?” Another would be “What type of Sandwiches do you like?”  Questions like those will keep the customers engaged.

GETTING MORE MEANINGFUL WEBSITE TRAFFIC:

Most website platforms give you an option to where you can see in detail the demographic of who’s been visiting your website.  You can find out the age of each visitor, race, where they’re from. Squarespace.com is good with that.  

You must understand having a very user friendly, easy access, ease of use, attractive website goes a long way.  I personally have seen terrible restaurant websites that are super outdated and very frustrating to use.

Make sure that when customers are on your FB Page you have your restaurants website in view.  Your website should have the following:

1. Photos of the Dining Area

2. Calendar Events

3. Downloadable Menu 

4. Option to buy Gift Cards (if selling merchandise)

With all that said, Social Media can be very intimidating especially to a novice. I was once in that position as well.  I remember the first time I used FB Ads my bank card got hacked a couple of days later. Not only that but the ad didn’t do squat! (because I did’t know what I was doing).

You may ask “Where should I start?” Honestly, just start with Facebook and learn how to use it properly, because once you do, it’s awesome!