Building Up Your Drinking Team:
Other than a very few places in major tourist destinations, the nightclub business relies on repeat customers. It is the regular crowd that is going to make you or break you.
If you want to improve sales at your bar, the single most important factor is going to be creating a steady clientele who will help you pay the bills month-in and month-out.
The way a person becomes a regular customer works like this: One day, for some reason, they show up at your place. In some way they are made to feel comfortable, welcome, or satisfied by their visit. They return again a few days later, and perhaps bring a friend or two along. This starts happening on a regular basis. They’ve joined up.
According to statistics, each regular customer in the liquor end of the hospitality business is worth just over $3,500.00 in annual sales, so it is a significant event for your business every time you win one new regular client.
The two things you have control of in this equation are:
1. Getting them to show up at your place.
2. Making them want to come back.
If you fail at either one, you will fail to build up a steady clientele. #2 is clearly the most important of the two.
You can draw crowds to your place with 50 cent draft, live bands, cheap drinks, free food, or by various methods of advertising. But, no matter how many feet pass through the door, none of it is going to do any good if you and your staff are not focused on recruiting them as regulars.
Yes, I said recruiting. There are as many different kinds of customers as there are fish in the sea. You want to pay special attention to the ones who spend money, have lots of friends, and cause as little trouble as possible.
Everybody likes to take their pals out to a place where they can say they are “friends” with the owner. Say hello, shake hands. And always remember, one guy who spends $100 is far better than twenty guys who spend $5 each!
It is very important for servers to know how much more money they can earn by recruiting regular patrons. Each regular is good for an average of $525 per year in tips.
Staff should make customers feel welcome, comfortable, and happy. They should learn to pay particular attention to visitors who might make good regulars.
The bar itself should be comfortable and inviting. It should be clean. Things should always be repaired right away. Your seating should be something a person can sit on for several hours without getting uncomfortable. Bathrooms should be kept clean and smelling fresh. The exterior and parking lot should be clean and tidy.
Once you have got a place someone might want to come back to, now it is time to get some people in the door.
If you decide to advertise, don’t expect to spend $100 and get 25-30 regular customers to join up. You’re not going to get $100,000 in sales out of one ad or flyer!
Realistically, if you do it right, you’ll get one new regular customer for your $100, maybe two if you’re lucky – and if your staff knows how to make regulars out of visitors.
If you’re booking a band for $400, and win just one new regular customer from that night, it will more than pay for the cost of the band. Don’t expect to spend $400 and make ten grand, it simply doesn’t work that way. Real growth is incremental, it’s a long-term thing. That is why I’ve always said that owning a bar is a get-rich-slowly scheme.
Remember, each regular is worth $3,500.00 in sales.
You can use “gimmicks” to get people in the door, but you’re going to have to use sincerity and a commitment to good service to make them return. There are no gimmicks to keeping a steady crowd of good regular customers.
Some people are great at getting people in the door. Others are great at making new friends. Rare and successful is the bar owner or manager who knows how to do both!
