I ran a workshop a few weeks ago on marketing for hospitality businesses. One of the participants was telling the restaurants on the call that they should all be looking to build their own app. His reasoning made sense, in an old-school business sense.
I was grateful he had mentioned it because to me it highlighted a deeper and more important tool that business owners – especially those who want to practice their marketing ethically – should be keeping in the front of their mind.
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What is the most important decision-making tool in your toolbox?
In this video, I’m talk about this really important mindset that you need to have when you’re making any decision in your business.
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The Suggested Strategy That Prompted This Video
So, I was running a workshop recently for a bunch of hospitality businesses that ranged from large franchises down to a local social enterprise and there was a lot of peer sharing that went on rather than just me teaching and it was really great. What was interesting though was that one guy started speaking up about a strategy that he thought all the other restaurant owners on the call should be using.
His suggestion to everyone was that every restaurant should be building an app. That every single restaurant should be building an app because things like Deliveroo and Just Eat, they take a large chunk of your share every time someone orders food through them. And I found this interesting, and I probably disagreed with it a little bit.
Do This Because It “Affects the Bottom Line”
Now, his reasoning was that, you know, they’re taking a chunk of your (share) and what he kept saying was, “This is affecting your bottom line, this is affecting your bottom line.” And I was like…I was so uncomfortable with this, and if you’ve been following my videos you’ll you’ll realise I was immediately uncomfortable with this, but I also realised it was actually bad business sense.
Why Using the Bottom Line is Bad Business Sense
Now, rather old school, or perhaps simplistic, business logic is if it’s affecting your bottom line it is the first thing you need to do, it is the first thing that you need to take action on and it is where you start with making your business more profitable. While, I understand the logic there, I think there’s actually a stronger way to make your business better especially in the long run.
The Better Tool in Your Business Toolbox to Use
So, the most important question you’re asking yourself, the most important tool in your toolbox, is not “Is this affecting the bottom line?” but “Does my target person want this?” And what’s funny about this is that when you start building your business, when you start making all your decisions based on whether your customer actually wants it or not, you will impact your bottom line! It’s just a longer game. You just need to go beyond the numbers that you’re seeing in front of you on the sheet that you’re looking at and instead start thinking about, “Well, will this create long-term gain for my business?”
So, going back to the example of the app for the restaurants, now that might work for maybe a large, franchised business that has a large audience that might be eating quite frequently at their restaurants and people want to get it cheaper than if they go to Deliveroo. But it might not work so well for a small social enterprise with limited resources who need to do what’s most valuable to their customer right now. But it may also work for that small social enterprise if they know they’ve got a large loyal following that do want to have that sense of community, maybe an app makes sense.
But the important thing here is that decision should not be being made based on whether it affects the bottom line but based on whether the customer wants it.
So I hope that that mindset shift helps you just a little bit make your business a little bit better, makes your business serve your customer a little bit better.
If you want to talk about any of this kind of thing I’m happy to have an hour-long session with anyone I won’t be selling anything I will just be talking about what you need in your business and helping you especially if you’re doing something that’s helping to change the world.