Let’s face it, running a successful café is hard work. As one café opens it seems that two are closing, so for yours to survive you’ve got to have a plan. You’ve got to be great at the very things that make your business both profitable and valuable. With this in mind, here are 5 crucial factors you really need to follow in order to make your business a success and stand out from the competition.
Plan your way to success
A simple defined plan of where you want to go with your café business and how you want to get there is vital if you’re going to be a success. A simple one-page plan with a clear defined goal and vision is all it takes. It doesn’t matter whether it’s written on a piece of card, paper or even a napkin just so long as it’s written down and you can refer to it from time to time to re-focus if you need to.
Implementation failure (IF)
Successful businesses have one thing in common and that is that they all take action. They don’t suffer from implementation failure. Sometimes you’ve just got to do it! It might not always work out, but you’ll never know unless you take action and that’s the key!
Make your premises stand out
You can’t afford to be a ‘so-so’ café in a world full of them. If you really want to be successful you’ve got to stand out. Whether this is through your bold, wacky or way-out funky design scheme, great home cooked food and coffee, or the very best customer service, by making your business positive, vibrant and active, there’s a good chance that your customers are going to want to stick around. Once they do that, then word will spread.
Keep pairing it back to basics
As you get caught up in the daily grind of service it’s all to easy to lose focus on the fundamental basics of your café Remember the very things that made you stand out from the crowd when you opened – Are they still carried out in the same way today? Is the service, quality and cleanliness still there?Are you still serving great coffee? Are your customers getting a good overall experience? By re-examining these factors and going back to basics you’ll have a solid platform from which you can grow.
Loyalty is key
Finally, it’s all well and good trying to grow your customer base, but it’s also imperative to keep existing customers coming back for more. Make all customers feel welcome but pay particular attention to your regulars. Develop some kind of loyalty program but make it enticing and make it different. Unfortunately the ‘Buy 10 coffee’s and get one free’ deal has been done to death, so you might want to think about other ways to keep your customers loyal. Engage with them on social media platforms, provide them with an assured certainty of experience or keep them informed with regular newsletters telling them of the latest promotions, products and upcoming events.
So there you have it, 5 ways to make your café business a success. If you’re looking to stand out in terms of design then we can help. At Cafe Furniture Brisbane we supply a wide variety of café furniture at great value-for-money prices. Why not pop into our Brendale showroom or alternatively, check out our website at cafefurniturebrisbane.com.au or call us on 07 3205 1616 today.