Move Fast, Don't Wait...

Move fast, Don't Wait...

Dear friends in the F&B. Last week was a very sobering week for me. Left and right, Novitee customers were calling me. Asking me for advice on how to turn around their F&B business. When I say turn around. I don't mean even trying to make a profit. But, to just make sure you bleed lesser and survive. I realised a lot of our F&B customers suffer from tunnel vision. And I don't blame you. The reality is scary, frightening and it WILL incapacitate you.

The F&B business is characterised by ultra thin margins. As a brand, if you can hit 10% nett profit, you are in the upper echelons. This also means that it is super tough to build cashflow. Your typical F&B is a cash business that relies on cash sales to pay supplier bills from last month. The moment cash sales drop, even if you don't feel it this month, next month is going to come bite you hard. And everyone is panicking. Cash in bank is falling... you need to pay suppliers, and more importantly salaries.

As someone trained in psychology, what I realised is that under extreme stress, a lot of people have an ostrich mentality, or would choose to adopt a 'wait-and-see'. They do this because, the thought of facing up to reality is too scary.

But now is not the time to do this. We need to stand up, and quickly be creative with our strategies. If we wait too long, there would be no room for come back.

The new reality is that, dine-in crowds are going to plummet. Let's all agree on that. If this is the case, our only option is delivery and takeaway. So, you need to start planning your strategies according to this. What is your delivery strategy? What is your takeout strategy? How are you going to reach out to customers, but also meet the last mile delivery.

3 days ago, I met a customer. HE has 12 outlets. He was panicking about an empty outlet that was over-staffed. We talked about it, and I suggested having his own staff serve as delivery boys, to do delivery service to the neighbourhood. As common sense as it sounded, he told me he didn't think about it. This isn't a criticism on him, but rather, the extreme stress we face sometimes make us too myopic.

I had another customer. He said that he is ready to make delivery runs, but didn't want to use platforms to do delivery. He asked me how much my online and QR ordering costs. I told him that now isn't the time to spend money. He had literally no cashflow left. Instead, open up his CRM, look at his database and just whatsapp his customers telling them that you now do delivery. And just whatsapp you. And yes, his business did pick up.

All the above are not brilliant ideas. But practical ideas that anyone can think of as long as they focus on it.

So i encourage you to face up to reality. Understand the situation, and think of creative strategies to help overcome the current crisis.

And to all Novitee customers... As always, I am just a whatsapp away.

Let's get through this together :)