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Showing posts with label Managing Profit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Managing Profit. Show all posts

22 Hukum Tetap Pemasaran (Al Ries & Jack Trout)



Berikut adalah hukum-hukum tetap pemasaran yang dikemukakan Al Ries dan Jack Trout dalam bukunya “The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing” (1993):

1.    Hukum Kepemimpinan
Lebih baik menjadi yang pertma dari pada menjadi yang lebih baik. Kesuksesan pemasaran – berlaku untuk setiap produk, merk, dan kategori - terletak pada siapa yang pertama kali masuk dalam ingatan calon pelanggan.

2.    Hukum Kategori
Jika anda tidak dapat menjadi yang pertama dalam sebuah kategori, buatlah kategori baru yang menjadikan anda yang pertama. Saat kita meluncurkan suatu produk baru, pertanyaan awal yang harus diajukan bukanlah bagaimana produk tersebut lebih baik dari produk lain dalam persaingan, tetapi dalam kategori mana ia akan menjadi yang pertama.

3.    Hukum Ingatan
Lebih baik jadi yang pertama dalam ingatan atau fikiran dari pada menjadi yang pertama di tempat penjualan. Adalah penting menjadi yang pertama di tempat penjualan manakala hal tersebut memberi kemungkinkan kita menjadi yang pertama dalam ingatan.

4.    Hukum Persepsi
Pemasaran bukanlah pertarungan produk, melainkan pertarungan persepsi. Pemasaran adalah manipulasi dan modifikasi dari persepsi. Hal yang tidak mudah untuk dapat merubah ingatan

How to Write a Business Plan



Many potential start-up businesses are daunted by the prospect of writing a business plan. But it is not a difficult process - and a good business plan focuses the mind as well as helping to secure finance and support.
The business plan will clarify your business idea and define your long-term objectives. It provides a blueprint for running the business and a series of benchmarks to check your progress against. It is also vital for convincing your bank - and possibly key customers and suppliers - to support you.

1.       Executive summary
  • The executive summary outlines your business proposal. Although it is the last section to be written, it goes on the first page of the business plan. It will be read by people unfamiliar with your business, so avoid jargon.
  • The executive summary highlights the most important points and should sum up your product or service and its advantages, opportunity in the market, management team, track record to date, financial projections, funding requirements and expected returns.
2.       The business
  • Explain the background to your business idea, including the length of time you have been developing the business idea in its present form, work carried out to date, any related experience you have, the proposed ownership structure of the business.
  • Explain what your product or service is. Make it clear how it will stand out as different from other products or services, your customers will gain through buying your product or service, the business can be developed to meet customers' changing needs in the future
3.       Markets and competitors
  • Focus on the segments of the market you plan to target - for example, local customers or a particular age group.

Sales Forecasting Method



Properly forecasting sales helps you plan and prepare for the months and years ahead, allowing you to control costs and focus on successful growth strategies. A good sales forecasting methodology also helps your business run more efficiently. The most practical method for forecasting sales is to base your projections on historical sales results and your past experience. The right sales forecast method for your business is the one that is closest to your actual sales results within a reasonable margin of error.


Step 1
Gather your company's past income statements. Go back several years. Sales data from your income statements over the last five to 10 years has more predictive power than just using last year's sales to forecast this year's sales.

Step 2
Calculate the sales growth rate from year to year. Divide the current sales by the prior year's sales. For example, if your sales this year were $487,000 and last year's sales were $412,000, the sales growth rate is 18 percent ($487,000 divided by $412,000). Repeat the process for all other years in the series of sales data. You should have five year's worth of sales growth rates if you go back five years.

Step 3
Compare the sales growth rates year to year. Plot the sales growth rates using a spreadsheet for visual representation. Ideally, your sales growth rate should increase over time.

Step 4
Analyze various factors that impact sales to gain a better understanding of why sales grew or slowed from year to year. Determine the cause and effect relationship of variables, such as customer demand, worker productivity, advertising and promotion. For example, hiring an additional salesperson has an impact on sales. Demographic trends, such as an influx of consumers with high household income, can also have an affect on sales. Greater advertising and promotion affects sales, as well.

Step 5
Identify external factors that affect sales. External factors include the general economic environment or macroeconomic trends, such as unemployment, interest rates, consumer sentiment and inflation. Other macroeconomic trends include the level of competition. A greater number of competitors can potentially depress your company's sales, which you must forecast into your sales projections.

10 Ways to Reduce Food Cost


Ultimately there are only two ways to make a food business more profitable: you can increase sales or reduce cost. In a depressed economic environment increasing sales is challenging. The following tips are proven methods of reducing food cost:

1. Measure It
“You can’t control what you don’t measure”. Regular stock takes provide a basis for the calculation of the “Cost of Goods Sold” (CoGS). CoGS are calculated using the following simple formula.
Opening Value + Purchases – Closing Value = CoGS
The CoGS as a percentage of Sales is a valuable measure for food cost control.
A spreadsheet can be used as a easy and cost effective solution for calculating Opening and Closing stock values and tracking purchases.

2. Shop Around
It is important to build a relationship with your suppliers, howeverit is also healthy to compare prices with competitors to ensure you are getting a good deal. Keeping a finger on the pulse of market prices by regular price comparisons can reduce food cost.

3. In-House Preparation
Preparing food in-house rather than purchasing pre-prepared ingredients can reduce food cost. There are a wide variety of pre-prepared ingredients available, from pre-cut vegetables to pre-made sauces. Typically pre-prepared ingredients are substantially more expensive than their raw ingredients.
There are a number of considerations when comparing pre-prepared with in-house preparation including:
  • Labor cost
  • Availability of suitably skilled staff
  • Quality

Ways to Control Overhead Costs



Corporate overhead, if unchecked, can eat up your profits and potentially create a net loss before you realize it. Without a breakdown of your costs into production and overhead categories, you might not realize how much you’re actually spending to run your company. Detailed financial reporting and budget variance analyses will help you keep your overhead to a manageable level.

The costs you have to run your business and sell your product make up corporate overhead. These are expenses you have even when you aren’t making your product. They include expenses such as rent, marketing, phones, insurance, administrative staff, office equipment, interest and supplies. Like corporate overhead, departmental overhead includes expenses you have when you’re not producing your product, but they apply directly to one department. For example, machinery maintenance is an example of departmental overhead.

The first step in determining your corporate overhead is to identify it. If you don’t record every expense you have on a budget sheet or other financial report, do so. Start by creating production and corporate overhead reports. Production expenses are costs that apply directly to making your product, such as materials and labor. Next, break down your corporate overhead by function, such as marketing, human resources, information technology, office administration and sales.

Give each of your managers the list of overhead their department generates. Ask them to look for ways to reduce their spending without sacrificing productivity, efficiency and quality. Your department managers might be the most knowledgeable about how to do this. If you don’t already do it, have your department heads submit an annual budget request each year. Labor is often one of the largest costs of any business; have department heads compare outsourcing versus in-house staff for various projects and positions to determine if they can find cost-savings opportunities.

Benefits of Standardized Recipes

Consistent food quality

The use of standardized recipes ensures that menu items will be consistent in quality each time they are prepared and served.


Predictable yield

The planned number of servings will be produced by using standardized recipes. This can help to reduce the amount of leftover food if there has been overproduction, and also will help to prevent shortages of servings on the line. A predictable yield is especially important when food is transported from a production kitchen to other serving sites.


Customer satisfaction

Well-developed recipes that appeal to students are an important factor in maintaining and increasing student participation levels. Schools may take a lesson from national restaurant chains that have developed popular menu items consistent in every detail of ingredient, quantity, preparation, and presentation. Standardized recipes provide this consistency and can result in increased customer satisfaction.


Consistent nutrient content

Standardized recipes will ensure that nutritional values per serving are valid and consistent.


Food cost control

Standardized recipes provide consistent and accurate information for food cost control because the same ingredients and quantities of ingredients per serving are used each time the recipe is produced.


Efficient purchasing procedures

Purchasing is more efficient because the quantity of food needed for production is easily calculated from the information on each standardized recipe.


Inventory control

The use of standardized recipes provides predictable information on the quantity of food inventory that will

How to Do a Breakeven Analysis



Breakeven analysis helps determine when your business revenues equal your costs
By Daniel Richards
If you can accurately forecast your costs and sales, conducting a breakeven analysis is a matter of simple math. A company has broken even when its total sales or revenues equal its total expenses. At the breakeven point, no profit has been made, nor have any losses been incurred. This calculation is critical for any business owner, because the breakeven point is the lower limit of profit when determining margins.

There are several types of costs to consider when conducting a breakeven analysis, so here's a refresher on the most relevant.

  • Fixed costs: These are costs that are the same regardless of how many items you sell. All start-up costs, such as rent, insurance and computers, are considered fixed costs since you have to make these outlays before you sell your first item.

  • Variable costs: These are recurring costs that you absorb with each unit you sell. For example, if you were operating a greeting card store where you had to buy greeting cards from a stationary company for $1 each, then that dollar represents a variable cost. As your business and sales grow, you can begin appropriating labor and other items as variable costs if it makes sense for your industry.

Setting a Price

This is critical to your breakeven analysis; you can't calculate likely revenues if you don't know what the unit price will be. Unit price refers to the amount you plan to charge customers to buy a single unit of your product.

  • Psychology of Pricing: Pricing can involve a complicated decision-making process on the part of the consumer, and there is plenty of research on the marketing and psychology of how consumers perceive price. Take the time to review articles on pricing strategy and the psychology of pricing before choosing how to price your product or service.

  • Pricing Methods: There are several different schools of thought on how to treat price when conducting a breakeven analysis. It is a mix of quantitative and qualitative factors. If you've created a brand new, unique product, you should be able to charge a premium price, but if you're entering a competitive industry, you'll have to keep the price in line with the going rate or perhaps even offer a discount to get customers to switch to your company.

Financial Strategy


Effective strategies are crucial to the well-being of the firm, and need to address the following issues:
  • How, where and when the business will obtain funds, plus (for public companies) the timing of share issues and the determination of share issue prices
  • The best use of financial resources
  • Gearing
  • How to maximize the market valuation of the firm
  • What to do with accumulated cash
  • Long term financial planning for business expansion
  • The capital structure of the business
  • The extent to which internally generated profits are reinvested within the company
  • Choice of financial criteria for selecting major capital investments.

Also companies operating in several countries need to formulate

10 Ways to Save Money at Your Restaurant


Everyone is looking for ways to save money these days. Restaurants are no exception. The good news is that there are a lot of quick steps you can take to save you money, either through cutting energy use or reducing spoilage. A lot of these tips are the same things your mom told you growing up.
  1. Switch to energy efficient light bulbs. Subway recently switched all their light bulbs to energy efficient bulbs in all of their 2000 US franchise locations. Switching to an energy efficient light bulb can save up to $22 per bulb per year. This can add up to quite a savings over time. Also keep lights off when you don’t need them. If you don’t start serving lunch until 11 o’clock there is no reason to turn the dining room lights on until then. 
  2. Only run the dishwasher when it is completely full. This cuts down on water usage, soap and energy costs.
  3. Soak the dishes. Rather than running hot water over them to loosen dried food, fill a sink and let them soak.
  4. Install low flow faucets and toilets. This will save between 20 to 40 percent of water usage.
  5. Turn down the thermostat. You can still be comfortable at 68 degrees rather than 72 degrees.
  6. Switch from plastic to glass. Green restaurants have been following this tip for years. If restaurant uses disposable plates, flatware or cups, considering a one time investment for china, glass and silver. You will save on garbage (good for the environment as well as the restaurant budget) and save money over time.
  7. Invest in energy efficient appliances. This is a lot easier said than done, especially in a sluggish economy. But consider that many states offer restaurants tax credits and other incentives for switching to energy efficient appliances. Plus, the savings on an energy efficient appliance can often pay for itself within a year or two.
  8. Trim down your menu. Track sales of every menu item and remove menu items that aren’t selling. Also look for ways to cross utilize menu items, using one item for multiple dishes. This will help reduce food spoilage as well as keep food cost under control.
  9. Take advantage of e-marketing. More and more people turn to Google to look for restaurants than the yellow pages. Take advantage of all the internet has to offer, from your own website to online advertising. Many companies offer inexpensive e-newsletters you can send to customers for a fraction of traditional prints ads.
  10. Train your staff. Teach your staff to sort recyclables, turn off lights, let you know if there is a leaky faucet in the wait station. Ask them to bring in their own take-home containers instead of using the restaurant take-outs.

10 Ways to Stay Ahead of Your Restaurant Competition


quoted from Ian Macdonald - founder and owner of Macdonald's Gourmet Burgers

Every restaurant owner should constantly be taking an objective look at how well your restaurant is doing. Staying ahead of the competition will keep you on your toes. Here are some ways you can get a good report card.

1. Know who your competition is!
I have encountered situations where a restaurant owner has identified the competition. Or at least what they think is their competition, but they're not. If I am selling Gourmet Burgers with the finest of ingredients, including trimmed premium Scotch Fillet Steak for the beef patties, (like I do), in a licensed restaurant with full service and extras, I am not really in Competition with the greasy burger joint down the road, or a group like Burger King am I?
So make sure your competition is truly your competition in the first place.

2. Get Employees to Sample the Competition.
You should always know what your competition is doing, it is essential to your success. It may be difficult to go yourself though as you would no doubt be known. So send one of your employees instead. Brief them what to look for. It will also give you the opportunity to treat a staff member to something different. How about showing up for work to be told you have to go out to dinner or lunch...all expenses paid!!!
3. Employ the services of a mystery shopper.
This is the reverse of what we have just spoken about. Here you get someone to come to your restaurant and report back to you. So none of you staff know what's going on. I organise this by going to our local business or community college and speaking to someone from the food and beverage school. They always suggest a student that would excel at the project. They earn some money, have some fun, and get a free meal. I often donate something to the college or I might even go and speak to there for them.
Everybody wins.

'10' Restaurant Financial Red Flag

quoted from John Nessel - Restaurant Resource Group

  • Absence of a well organized and implemented accounting system
  • Key operating expenses too high relative to gross sales
  • Menu items not accurately documented, costed and updated
  • Food & beverage inventory levels not counted and costed at the end of each accounting period or recorded in your accounting software
  • Food and beverage inventory levels too high relative to corresponding sales
  • Daily & weekly financial operating data not collected, reviewed or acted upon
  • Inaccurate posting of financial information to your accounting system
  • Current liabilities sufficiently greater than current assets as to impair future ability to pay bills
  • Owner relying on online bank balance to determine available cash to pay bills
  • Overall lack of understanding as to how to read and interpret period ending Financial Statements

Why Fast Food Is Not Cheaper Than Healthy Food

quoted from Tim Harland, MD - Board certified internist and founder of Dr Gourmet.com

I get a lot of questions during lectures from people wanting to know how they can eat better when eating healthy is so expensive. They base their questions on claims that unhealthy choices are cheaper. For instance, I saw a recent news story where the reporter walked around Wal-Mart and looked at the value of foods based on the measure of calories per dollar. This is really nothing more than a cute parlor game to say that one dollar will purchase close to 1,000 calories of candy bars but only a single large apple, because it doesn't tell us anything about what we get for our money. Calories are certainly an important part of our diet and weight control, but it is the quality of those calories that matters to our health.


The conclusion often from studies and news reports is that the subsidies on more calorie-dense foods are the culprit Because our government provides funding to farmers growing calorie-dense products like corn (which is processed into sugars) and beef, the typical fast food menu can be advertised as being "cheap, cheap, cheap," and candy bars can be sold for 33 cents each.

This is, however, one of the great myths about healthy eating -- ranking right up there with the fallacy that eating healthy doesn't taste good. I believe it's more economical to cook a fresh, healthy meal than to eat junk food.

The argument I hear most often is that it's cheaper to eat at McDonald's. After going to McDonald's recently and putting together a typical meal for four (mom, dad and two kids), I came up with a total of about $14.00 (I didn't actually buy anything, though). For that money, you get almost nothing of nutritive value, but bland white bread, greasy burgers and fries with a sugary soda.

Sales Projections

Paling tidak, terdapat 9 faktor yang memberi pengaruh terhadap proyeksi sales yang kita buat, yaitu:
  • Trade-Off Days. Adalah hari tersibuk di restoran, biasanya jatuh pada Jum'at dan Sabtu. Pada dua hari tersebut dapat menghasilkan lebih dari 30% dari sales. Karenanya jika terdapat perbedaan jumlah trade-off days pada bulan yang kita proyeksikan dibanding bulan sama di tahun lalu, kita perlu mempertimbangkannya.
  • Promotions. Tentukan seberapa besar pengaruh promosi yang direncanakan terhadap sales, lihat pengaruh promosi yang sama sebelumnya.
  • Store Trends. Perhatikan sales yang didapat akhir-akhir ini, cenderung naik atau turun. Bandingkan denganfluktuasi market, dan adakah rencana kerja yang dibuat akan efektif mengubah kecenderungan yang negatif.
  • Major Investments. Adakah rencana remodel atau rekonstruksi, dan apakah akan berpengaruh pada proyeksi sales.
  • New Competition. Adakah produk baru yang berhubungan dengan kompetitor baru. Adakah reinvestasi atau launching produk baru dari kompetitor.
  • New Products. Adakah produk baru yang kita rencanakan, seberapa besar berpengaruh pada proyeksi sales.
  • Local Construction Activities. Adakah sedang berlangsung perbaikan atau pembangunan konstruksi jalan, jembatan, bangunan baru, shopping centre dan rumah tinggal di tading area kita. Apakah kita mentargetkan adanya traffic generator baru selepas kontruksi selesai.
  • Weather. Bagaimana trend cuaca, dan seberapa kira-kira pengaruhnya.
  • Operations. Adakah kualitas produk, mutu pelayanan, dan tingkat kebersihan restoran kita meningkat. Seberapa besar pengaruhnya pada perkiraan sales.

Awali dari Menu

Dalam perkembangan bisnis restaurant, produk makanan dan minuman yang diwujudkan dalam menu memegang peran strategis dalam kegiatan operational. Tidak berlebihan kalau ada yang berpendapat everythings in food service operation start from the menu, segala sesuatu dalam kegiatan operational restaurant berawal dari menu.

Pengadaan peralatan masak serta pangaturan tata letak dapur ditentukan berdasarkan menu yang dijual. Demikian pula keperluan karyawan sebagai juru masak, pengadaan bahan, sitem pelayanan termasuk return on investment ( ROI ), diperhitungan berdasarkan menu yang di jual.

Overview of profitability

The ultimate measure of success for any business is its ability to make a profit. Each day money enters the business in the form of sales and leaves the business in the form of expenses. The expensess are the costs of operating or growing your business. If sales are greater than expenses, the business is profitable. If expenses are greater than sales, the business is not profitable.


Opportunities for profitability exist in all areas of your restaurant, whether you are handling cash or positioniong your crew members. This chapter describes the policies and procedures as well as measures you can take to optimize your profits in three major areas:
  • Administrative tasks
  • On-the-floor operations
  • Finacial statements

Detailed procedures and guidelines give you the information you need to fine-tune your operation and identify areas that require immediate attention. In addition, you'll learn how to gather and review information from previous days and weeks that can help you develop strategies for improving future operations and profit.


Helpful suggestions throughout the chapter focus primarily on ways to manage your food and labor costs - the largest expenses in your restaurant. However, you'll also find many other ideas on decreasing costs and improving profits in virtually all areas of your restaurant's operations.



our role is not over until you realize the desired business results