Hey, everybody. Ryan Gromfin here – author, speaker, chef, restaurateur,
and founder of TheRestaurantBoss.com.
And today, I've got some really, really great training for you.
I'm going to show you my three cost-saving ideas
that you can implement right now today
within seconds of watching this video that will save you money instantly
and have a huge impact on your bottom line by the end of the year,
by the end of the month even, you're going to see a huge change.
So, let's get right into this.
My first idea is what's called a descending dollar report.
A descending dollar report. You can order this from your vendor and basically
what it is is, it will list from top to bottom
the items you spend the most amount of money on in your restaurant
down to the least. It has nothing to do with how many cases you buy or anything like that,
it's total dollars.
So what it allows you to do is to know where to focus.
So many of us are so focused on saving a penny or a dollar or
a small amount of change on a small item, which all adds up at the end
of the period, don't get me wrong. Saving a dollar on plastic wrap is great,
that's an extra dollar, but what I'd rather you do is start focusing on the big-ticket items.
Again, it may not be an item that cost you an enormous amount of money,
it may be a case of chicken that only cost you thirty or forty or fifty dollars a case,
but if you're buying 50 or 60 cases a month and that's where you're spending the
most amount of money in your restaurant,
I want you to start right there.
Substitute out the product to another brand of chicken or another
cut or something, another
style of chicken
that is going to be the exact same quality or better for less money.
Maybe because you're buying so much, you can work out a deal with your vendor
to lower you a dime or 15 cents a pound on this product
because you're buying so much of it
and then, once you work out a deal on that highest cost item
or the item you spend the most money on, then work your way down.
You will be amazed at how much money you can save fast.
I mean like five-six hundred dollars a month if not more
just by looking at a descending dollar report.
My next tip is a prime vendor agreement.
You know, we've been taught forever in the restaurant business that every week you shouldhave your
vendors send you a price list of the stuff that you buy from them
and then you compare all the price lists and you say, alright,
I'm going to order this, this, and this from this vendor today.
This, this, and this from this vendor today.
And that's great, but it's not the best way to do things, it's just not.
And what I really recommend is what's called a prime vendor agreement.
And if you call up your vendors right now
whoever you work with and negotiate this out,
what they're going to ask in return is that you buy about 80, 85, 90,
I've seen as high as 95% of your product from them.
And obviously, they have no way of proving this, but
this is really a loyalty agreement,
that I'm going to be loyal to you
and in return, you're going to give me the best price as possible.
The reason they're willing to do this is, it saves them dollars on marketing
and it saves their rep time on fighting for your business. If you're constantly…
if you're constantly looking for somewhere else to buy product for them and you're not
giving them all of your business,
that company has to go spend dollars on marketing,
they have to send reps out to see you on a regular basis,
they have to be giving you all kinds of coupons and specials.
And at the end of the day, it's not worth it for them.
They'd rather just know that they're going to get
twenty thousand dollars in business from you a month
and in exchange for that, they're going to give you the best pricing out there.
Now every once in a while, I still suggest that you check up
with your other vendors on pricing to make sure you're still getting the best pricing,
but I just… I can't tell you enough how important this is - a prime vendor agreement.
And then my last cost-saving idea is lowering your inventory.
I know that sounds so obvious, so blatant obvious,
but I can't tell you how many restaurants I walk into that have just
huge amounts of inventory on their shelves
and what is inventory on a shelf?
That's dollars not in your pocket, so get that stuff the shelves.
Now you may get a better deal, you may save a couple of dollars by
buying soy sauce in a five-gallon bucket
instead of buying soy sauce in one-gallon jars or jugs,
jugs, whatever. But the reality is if that five gallons is going to
sit on your shelf for three or four months,
the two or three dollars that you save just isn't worth it.
I'd rather have my soy sauce that I'm going through on a more regular base,
it's fresher.
You're going to get less waste because your kitchen staff knows that it's
in shorter supply, or when it gets low, they know that there's not another one right behind it,
so they're going to be more careful with it.
Plus, that's dollars you could be using for other things, for marketing,
for putting butts in your seats,
for doing all kinds of other things that I know we could all use a couple extra dollars.
So, lowering your inventory.
If you're an advanced restauranteur already
and you know if you're keeping track of your inventory
and you know the cost of everything on your shelves and you know the cost
of all of your recipes,
I've got some great tips and some great formulas to show you on
where your inventory level should be for beer and wine and liquor and food, etc.
So go ahead and leave some comments below this video if you have any questions
or any comments or anything you'd like to talk about these three cost savings ideas.
I'd love to hear from you.
If you want more about my inventory techniques and my frameworks, let me know.
This has been Ryan Gromfin with The Restaurant Boss saying have a great day.