GoFaxer Blog

You’re Opening a Restaurant? Great. Ben Steverman at BusinessWeek.com says, “Almost half the money spent on food in the U.S. is spent at restaurants.” But beware. Americans are eating out less these days, due to economic burdens.

So you must be as savvy as possible at keeping your costs low, while building and maintaining customers. There are no brainer possibilities for keeping your costs low, like sending your menus through an Internet based fax service.

The other thing you want to consider is your value quality. Chains like the Olive Garden do well during economic downturns because customers feel like they’re getting a lot for their money.

In response to this fact, if you’re creating a business now, with great economic uncertainty, make sure that your restaurant concept has a strong value concept as part of the brand. Make sure that your customers feel as if they’re getting great food for a very reasonable price.

Restaurants aren’t going anywhere in America. We still love to eat out. We love the entertainment. We love the food that we don’t have to prepare. We love trying something new and exciting. But the industry may be hurting in the coming months, so keep that in mind. In the mean time, don’t forget to sign up for Internet fax.

In this day of economic uncertainty, your employees are going to get nervous. Even if you have a great company, even if you’re a cutting edge operation, where everyone’s got flat screens and uses Internet fax, your employees are going to stress. Everyone worries about their job security when the number one news item is the struggling economy. Add the daily pressures of business life, and it’s easy for a company culture to revolt.

Actually, they probably won’t openly rebel because they don’t want to lose their job. What will happen will be worse. They’ll quietly murmur amongst themselves about every thing that could ever cause one discontent.

How do you keep your staff optimistic? How do you motivate your troops in such a way that they stay focused on the things that will help your company survive through the coming storm? My advice: Be both honest and optimistic.

You have to keep it honest. If there’s bad news, admit it openly. And admit that it’s bad. Admit that you’re disappointed. It’s okay to suggest that things aren’t all peachy. Everyone knows or will know the truth. If you hide it and then offer a super positive leadership speech, you’ll come across like a phony. Being honest cuts down that wall and allows you to really communicate with your staff.

Follow up your honest assessment with a strong strategic vision for how you’re going to lead the company through the troubled time. Your team wants to hear an optimistic plan. They want some hope.