The biggest night in nightlife is here. You have promotions going on, big-name events, and countless guests to appease. The planning, preparation, and execution is a whirlwind to say the least, and it’s only natural to want to take a breather the first few days of the year and get back on track. But the best thing you can do for yourself during this time is think big picture and set yourself up for success for the coming year.
The first step is to reflect on this past year and how your club performed. There will be areas that are great and need little to no improvement, and there will be others that aren’t so great and need a lot of work. Discover why the well-performing areas went the way they did and see if there’s anything to draw from it. Perhaps it’s a good system, a key employee, or a crucial tool that contributed to the success. If you can pinpoint it to something specific, you’ll likely be able to apply it to the areas that need work and create a good strategy for the year ahead.
If you’re having a hard time reflecting on the past year due to little or no data (trust us…you’re not alone), then you have direct insight on what your new strategy needs to be. In fact, the biggest trend in 2014 is big data and technology in the nightlife scene.
We know, technology is daunting, but it’s easier than you think, especially when you take it in small steps. It also can bridge the gap between operations and performance. With the right tool and provider, you’ll be able to discover:
• Your club’s overall performance, such as total sales, number of VIP reservations, number of guests on the guestlist, and number and types of bottles sold. This can be showed on a to-date basis, or be broken out by day, month, and so on.
• Which servers and promoters brings in the most reservations, makes the most tips, and closes the most sales through upselling, pre-selling or cross-selling.
• Who your guests are – their name, contact information, top liquor purchases, money spent to-date, number of reservations, and average group size.
Without the use of technology, your venue won’t have access to this type of data. Not only does this help you better track performance, but it helps you increase customer experience to keep them coming back and spending money at your venue. And we can all agree that profitability is the key part of any New Year strategy.
So here’s to 2014, the year your venue will boost revenue, profitability, service and experience. All because of one simple concept: technology.
Whitney Johnson is the global director of marketing for BookBottles. Contact her at whitney.johnson@bookbottles.com.
