Seven risks to be avoided for the success of catering industry.

In the past two years, the business of physical stores has been sluggish, and restaurants are often opened one by one. What risks should catering start-ups avoid if they want to succeed?

If you want to successfully open a restaurant, as long as you successfully avoid the following "seven risks" of opening a restaurant, your success rate will be greatly improved.

Risk 1: Misunderstanding of food and beverage consumption demand around the store.

A few years ago, a French casual restaurant was opened in Toyama Prefecture, taking a low-cost route. The business philosophy of this store is "to provide consumers with low-priced and high-quality French food", aiming at attracting "new customers who have never eaten French food".

At first glance, I feel that this store will be very successful. But unfortunately, less than half a year after its opening, the store started with a high profile and ended with a low profile. The biggest reason for the failure of store management is the cognitive error of "French food consumption group" At the beginning of opening the store, I once met the store owner, and I remember he said such a thing at that time.

"French food is very popular in Tokyo now, and my goal is to open up a new French vegetable market in Toyama Prefecture."

Indeed! At that time, there was no affordable French restaurant in Toyama Prefecture, so the other party's conclusion was logical, "... so this is an opportunity". But the problem is that there is no such precedent in the past. From another angle, it may also mean that Toyama Prefecture "has no such demand (market)". Because there is no precedent to follow, if investors have to test the water in places where consumer demand is not strong, the probability of winning is of course very small.

In Tokyo, "consumers of French cuisine" have an overwhelming advantage, and customers prefer French cuisine with low prices. Therefore, French cuisine can maintain its enduring popularity.

According to this inference, French food consumers in Toyama Prefecture should flow into this restaurant. But because the absolute number of such customers is small, at least, the number of customers is far from enough to make the store operate stably. This is the real reason for the high-profile opening and low-key ending of this restaurant.

The catering enterprises provided by well-known enterprise consultants have withdrawn from this market, mainly because they have gained insight into this misunderstanding of consumer demand. The ideal is beautiful, but the reality is cruel (insufficient consumer demand), resulting in the store's revenue not reaching half of the expected.

By the way, the misunderstanding of this kind of consumer demand in the industry not only occurs in a small business circle like Toyama Prefecture, but also in a larger business circle and even in a prime location.

The so-called sales forecast data moved out by some well-known management consulting companies or affiliated headquarters is simply nonsense. If their forecast data is accurate, then at least not as many French restaurants will close down as they are now.

These people have never conducted an in-depth investigation and analysis of the "first-line catering consumption demand (market)". At best, they just play some data calculation games on paper.

In other words, "it is not only dangerous but also impossible to make a business plan without mastering the correct analysis method of consumption demand in the catering market". This is my opinion.

The second risk: the store is too big.

A few years ago, a popular French leisure restaurant opened next to a traffic trunk line in Toyama City. This road has a large traffic volume and is one of the best in the local area.

Besides, this restaurant has an excellent market. Not only is there a large passenger flow, but there are also many enterprises distributed around it, which has unique advantages. Therefore, this store is very attractive to consumers, and its revenue is second to none around.

Unfortunately, the store ended up in debt of hundreds of millions of yen.

What is the reason?

In a word, the store is too big.

Specifically, it is similar to the first "store opening risk" mentioned above, that is, the store scale is too large relative to the consumer demand around the store.

For the catering industry, the larger the store scale, the more investment is needed, such as bank loans, labor costs, store rent, utilities and other fixed costs. In other words, it is very expensive to maintain the normal operation of the store.

In addition, the more realistic problem is that in order to keep the attendance rate in a relatively stable state, businesses have to invest heavily in advertising.

The store's marketing performance in the surrounding business circle is the best, but in the end it left with huge debts, which is the terrible thing about opening a high-risk store.

Of course, I am not advocating that "the smaller the store, the better".

Instead, I want to emphasize that "large-scale inconsistent with consumer demand" is not a good strategy for opening a store.

The third risk: the store design failed.

Once the store design is messed up, the merchants will bear "unpredictable cost loss" and even "lose potential opportunities".

Here is a failure case that resulted in "unpredictable cost loss".

This is a western-style izakaya. The interior design is simple and American style, fashionable and atmospheric, divided into two floors. However, it is this special design scheme that leads to the high initial investment of the store and greatly increases the investment cost. In fact, this design also caused some complaints from customers who went to the store to eat, such as "the waiter didn't answer the bell" and "the service speed was slow". Every time the business in the store is busy, the waiters have to go upstairs and downstairs, and it is inevitable that the serving speed will be slow.

As a result, the store had to add a wine cabinet on the second floor and set up a special person to stay, resulting in a monthly loss of labor costs of more than 6,543,800 yen.

The enlightenment of this failure case is that if the design scheme is made hastily without careful consideration in advance, the result can only bear additional costs.

Next, let's talk about a failure case of "losing potential opportunities".

This is a Japanese-style izakaya, located along the main roads. This shop was transformed from the original wooden building. The interior decoration is simple and generous, the environment is elegant and comfortable, and the appearance is atmospheric.

However, the problem facing this store is that it is difficult to attract new customers. After investigating this store, I found that it "doesn't look like izakaya at all". From the geographical analysis, this store has a large flow of people and plenty of tourists, but few people know that it is a izakaya. Because no one will go to a store that doesn't know what it is, it can't attract new customers.

Now, the store owner has added a signboard marked "izakaya" in front of the store. As a result, compared with the same month last year, the store revenue increased by 1.5 times.

On the other hand, it can be said that this store has missed the opportunity in vain so far, watching customers lose one after another and losing the precious opportunity to attract new customers.

Judging from the above two cases, failed store design is often not easy to be detected.

The premise is that storefront design is a fait accompli, so even if some costs and opportunities are lost privately, it is difficult to be noticed.

In the future, in order to reduce cost loss and increase revenue, merchants must be cautious when designing stores in the early stage.

The fourth risk: relying on alternative models and special items to operate.

In fact, the "running road" restaurant mentioned at the beginning belongs to this type.

This shop is the first "pork restaurant" in Toyama Prefecture. At that time, this business model was rare in the catering industry. Its concept is quite creative, and the dishes provided are delicious. Although this shop has many advantages, it has been closed for less than half a year.

The reason for the failure of this case is exactly the same as that of Risk One and Risk Er Ru.

For example, suppose that customers who like pork cooking account for 10% of the total tourists. This ratio is basically the same whether it is a big business circle or a small business circle. However, the customers of big business districts and small business districts are different. In other words, the "absolute number" of consumers who prefer pork cooking in large business districts is very high, even if it only accounts for 10% of the whole, the number of tourists is amazing. Therefore, it is not a problem to choose to open a pork shop in a large business district.

On the contrary, the "absolute value" of customers in small business districts is small. Even if the merchants are steady and steady, and successfully attract 10% of consumers to eat in the store, the operating income is far from the level of maintaining the operation of the store.

This is the reality I know. By the way, there are certainly some exceptions. These shops that specialize in alternative formats and successfully establish themselves in the catering market are all "shops with the best taste and overwhelming advantages", that is, "local famous shops". But from my personal experience, only one chef in 100 people can attract customers to eat in the store. Therefore, this 1% store deserves to be a local famous store.

Some people think that "small shops should rely on specialty dishes to win or lose" and "focus on specialty goods", and so on. However, in my opinion, these are definitely high risks.

It's hard to win in a small business circle with characteristics. Its difficulty can only be achieved by a few 1% shops. The remaining 99% shops simply can't make unparalleled delicacies.

The fifth risk: insufficient understanding of finance and capital turnover.

There is a phenomenon in the catering industry: some shops were originally very profitable, but finally closed down. This phenomenon is usually the result of insufficient capital turnover of enterprises.

I once had a face-to-face conversation with the owner of a barbecue shop, who is the owner of a private restaurant. His shop is located in a small street.

"Mr. Shizuzawa, the people in the accounting firm said that the break-even point of our store was around 6.5438+0.8 million yen."

"Really?"

"Recently, the operating income of our store has reached 2.2 million yen, but the funds are still not enough!"

"Does your store have regular repayment? Sales profits also need to be deducted from the repayment. "

"yes! However, after deducting the repayment of 6.5438+0.5 million, the remaining money is still not enough! "

"Is your personal living expenses deducted from the balance?"

"yes."

"Even if there are 400,000 profits left, you still need to repay and pay the living expenses, and the funds will not be able to turn around."

"Yes, but the monthly living expenses are about 6.5438+0.5 million, and the repayment is 6.5438+0.5 million, which adds up to 300,000. After deducting from the profit of 400,000 yuan, isn't there 654.38+million left? Why is the cash flow still tight? "

"That makes sense! But there must be a reason behind it. "

After this exchange, I conducted a thorough investigation on the situation of this store and finally locked in the cause of the problem.

First, the turnover of the store fluctuated greatly, and the amount of dunning in the next month increased sharply after the store performance was greatly improved. In addition, the single purchase quantity of refined meat is large, which leads to the deviation of monthly order quantity. Months with low income often face a large number of purchase orders accumulated last month, which leads to an increase in capital turnover pressure.

Two, the water fee payment cycle is generally two months. Two-month cumulative payment led to a sharp drop in cash flow.

Third, in the month when store performance is rising, employees often need to socialize after work in order to strengthen their relationship with customers. This part of the expenditure is mainly included in public entertainment expenses (such as entertainment and welfare expenses), rather than deducted from the living expenses of employees.

These three factors are superimposed, which leads to the difficulty of cash flow in shops.

The above case may be a special case, but in reality this kind of situation is everywhere. Take the restaurant owner in this case as an example. When there is a big difference between store income and expenditure and the fluctuation of cash balance increases, the problem of unclear cash flow will occur.

In this way, it will be wasted more and more unconsciously, which will eventually lead to a gap in capital turnover.

In addition, private operators also face a problem, that is, there is no distinction between the daily operating funds of enterprises and the living expenses of operators, which should be paid special attention to. Everyone has one thing in common: if you have money, you want to spend it So, how to avoid the above situation and ensure that enterprises have sufficient working capital?

The sixth risk: the wrong way to promote sales

This kind of risk not only occurs in the process of opening new stores, but also plays an important role in the daily operation of enterprises. Here is an example of izakaya.

Located in the suburbs, this restaurant specializes in fresh fish dishes. It is a large izakaya with 100 seats. When the new store opened, its advertisement in the local media occupied a whole page. The store was full of diners for several days in a row, and the initial turnover was very impressive. Everything seems to be going well.

However, the problem soon appeared: the new store opened, a large number of customers poured into the store, and the employees were frightened by the unprecedented situation. As a result, customers complain constantly. What is more regrettable is that the customer's evaluation of this store is not only bad, but also very poor.

"If we continue to advertise, the situation at that time will definitely not be able to cope." However, the rhythm of this store's advertising in the media simply can't stop.

Why? Because of fear. The reason is simple: if a company that has achieved brilliant results suddenly fades from its former aura and faces the cruel reality of declining turnover, no one will not be afraid.

As a result, izakaya finally gave up advertising in the media due to financial pressure. Shortly after the advertisement stopped, the store's performance suddenly declined. Business in non-holiday shops is even more bleak.

Therefore, the store had to find another way to try to get rid of the predicament by changing the format. Unfortunately, the result is still very regrettable, and it was closed less than a year after its opening.

The initial decision-making mistake was true, but for the continuous promotion of a large number of new customers, the store was heavily in debt. If the store can adjust its thinking in time and focus on stabilizing old customers, the result may not be so bad.

It is very important for catering enterprises to attract new customers. However, if operators put all their thoughts on new customers, they will certainly face great risks.

The seventh risk: the wrong way to recruit and train talents.

Like the promotion cases listed above, for catering enterprises, in addition to opening new stores, the seventh risk may also cause great risks in business operations.

Take the French leisure restaurant as an example. Do you know how many waiters were equipped in this restaurant on the first day of opening? Only four. Shops have high requirements for employees (chefs, waiters), and it is understandable to value the professional skills and comprehensive quality of job seekers, but the risk of the above situation is too high.

For catering enterprises, labor cost is the most difficult expenditure item to control. No matter whether the business situation is good or bad, personnel expenditure is inevitable. Therefore, before the stable operation of enterprises, we must strictly control labor costs.

In addition, there is an extreme situation. A izakaya company planned to recruit 20 employees during the opening period, but only 3 employees were recruited. In desperation, the store had to postpone the original opening time. At this time, personnel recruitment has become an urgent problem.

The shopkeeper was anxious to post a lot of recruitment information in the media. At first, the results were not bad, but soon front-line employees began to resign one after another. In other words, the store hopes to solve the problem by recruiting people, but the post-training work has not kept up, so the personnel are unstable.

It can be inferred that this restaurant will face great risks in personnel recruitment and job training in the future.

In short, only by adopting correct "talent recruitment" and "business training" can the risk be controlled to a minimum.

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