Time constraints are by far the biggest objection (after cost) to making business investments that can move our brands forward. Here’s a story of a service-based business owner who was able to take a much needed vacation, and increase her monthly revenue by 50%.
A restaurant owner ‘who began working with us at Strong Brand Social started with at least 6 ideas to help resolve her 50% monthly revenue gap, in her 1st 90-day goal plan:
- Sell more event tickets
- Add new events to the calendar
- Do more private parties
- Increase delivery sales
- Increase takeout sales
- Recruit a partner for investment
And when we met, she was pursuing ALL of these options, while planning to take some time off for a summer break.
The key objective in our 90-Day Goals Planning was to look for a solution that could win her time back so she could take a break, while increasing her revenue.
Our solution was to pursue The Path of Minimal Effort. Namely, a tried & trusted strategy that she had already used in her business before, to help fill this immediate revenue gap. By pursuing a strategy she and her team were familiar with, we could reduce the friction of starting something new, allowing her to move quicker toward her revenue goals, with the least disruptive effect on her already exhausted nervous system.
Looking at her revenue data, recurring events appeared to generate the biggest revenue return, with the lowest amount of effort (and therefore least amount of time required). By analyzing which kind of events were most successful in bringing in immediate revenue, she brainstormed a few new event ideas that could possibly deliver a similar income as the past.
Understanding past data helped us create realistic projections for an immediate solution; one that had this entrepreneur focusing her time and energy on only ONE thing, instead of 6.
Choosing which events to pursue was the fun part, and in keeping with our philosophy of The Path of Minimal Effort, events that had a predetermined date and time, like Football Saturdays – felt like the best option. These were weekly events that could contribute to her increasing her monthly revenue by £5-£7.5K!
An additional event option was one that had the potential to widen the patron base for her restaurants by inviting new spend into the restaurant, like live music events. Similarly, these were able to contribute to incremental weekly gains towards her monthly revenue target.
As the last step, we addressed the communication system. As a go-to, I always advise brand leaders to do what’s always works for them. This is another time-saving strategy that will reduce friction and keep you moving at pace towards your goals. For this service business, email was her silver bullet. She could address her most loyal database first and cut out the time and wasted spend on new marketing channels. Then, she enhanced this with a geo-targeting strategy for her restaurant location, to attract the new customer base and retarget her loyal customer list on an adjacent platform.
This restaurant owner will now be able to bring in the £5-£7.5k p/m in monthly recurring revenue she needed, using a tried & trusted, frictionless event strategy that won’t burn her or her team out.
In your corner,
Katie
