File Name : Preventing Bar and Retail Theft Length : 0:06:28 minutes
Speakers : Anthony Caporale, Female Speaker Verbatim : Yes
Time codes : No
Special Comment :
[0:00:00] [Audio Starts]
Anthony Caporale: I�m your bartender and I want to thank you for hiring me to be the
face of your business. I know you spend a lot of time and even more money opening this
place. I want to thank you for that as well. But, mostly, I want to thank you for not paying
any attention at all to what�s going on behind this bar. My name is Anthony Caporale
of the Institute of Culinary Education and I�m going to show what you�ve been missing.
All the techniques that we are going to talk about today apply equally to beverage, food
and retail. Let�s start with probably the most common way that your bartenders are taking
money out of your pocket. We call this The Under Ring. Hi, Ma�am what can I get for
you there? Female Speaker: Can I get a tequila neat,
please. Anthony Caporale: Absolutely. Haven�t I
seen you here before? Female Speaker: I�ve been here a couple
of times. Anthony Caporale: Oh, yeah, yeah. That�ll
be $10. Female Speaker: Okay.
Anthony Caporale: Thank you. What you�re not going to see is that I�m not ringing
this in as $10, I�m ringing it in as $8.71. Guess where that extra dollar and 29 cents
goes? Right in my pocket. Anthony Caporale: The next thing we�re going
to cover is called The No Sale. Female Speaker: Can I have one of those T-shirts?
Anthony Caporale: Sure. Female Speaker: Thank you. I�m going to
give it to my boyfriend for his birthday. Anthony Caporale: That�ll be $20 please.
These make great gifts. Female Speaker: Yeah, I know, it looks great.
Thank you. Anthony Caporale: Watch the register. That�s
a dead giveaway that you�re losing money. This is going in my pocket.
Anthony Caporale: This is one is for the really bold members of your staff. We like to use
this after the guest is a little tipsy or when they�re not paying attention.
Female Speaker: Can I get a tequila, please? Anthony Caporale: Absolutely. And that will
be another $10 please. Thank you very much. That one doesn�t even go in the register.
Right in my tip jar, out of your pocket. Anthony Caporale: This next one I like to
call Begging or Fishing. Can I top you off? Female Speaker: Yes, thank you. Another ten
bucks? Anthony Caporale: That one�s on me.
Female Speaker: Oh, thank you. This is for you.
Anthony Caporale: Thank you. Guess who really paid for that drink? You did.
Anthony Caporale: Guess what time it is? Free Lunch. I bet you�d like me to sell these,
kind of hungry. You want a bag? Female Speaker: Thank you. Oh, I love these.
Anthony Caporale: No, thank you. Anthony Caporale: I am going to get a little
more sophisticated here. For this one I actually need your help. We call these Comps and Voids.
Female Speaker: Can I get a tequila, please? Anthony Caporale: That will be $10, same as
before. Try to keep the prices the same all day long.
Female Speaker: Thank you. Anthony Caporale: Thank you. I am going to
do everything right. I am going to ring this up and I am going to ring it up correctly.
This is where you come in. Steve I have a void. Can you just take this tequila off the
computer please? Steve: All right. Anthony, what happened?
Anthony Caporale: I spilled it. That�s not in the system anymore. You don�t know I
sold the drink, I�m keeping the $10. Anthony Caporale: So, you�ve seen me put
money in your drawer all night long. At the end of the night I have to get it back out
and I have to make sure that after eight hours of bartending I remember exactly how much
I put in. If I pull out the wrong amount you�re going to know something�s up. What you haven�t
seen is every time I put $10 in your drawer I take a straw and put it in this glass. At
the end of the night I just count how many straws I have multiply it by ten and that�s
how much money I take out of your pocket. So, we�ve really only scratched the surface
today. I�ve seen employees bring their own bottles of liquor that they can sell, so they�re
not actually selling from your inventory. I�ve seen employees turn the register off
early and ring everything after that into their own pocket. So, here�s what you probably
are asking yourself. How do I prevent theft? How much is a double-edged sword, because
the one thing that will prevent theft is trust between you and your employees. You need to
trust them and they need to trust you. Guess what? Cameras erode, plus, it is very
difficult to catch a lot of the things that I was doing on camera especially if I�ve
been doing them for four or five years and I�ve gotten very, very slick. So, what I
always tell people is, it�s much easier to eliminate the motive for stealing than
to eliminate the opportunity for stealing. But here is what I�d really like you to
focus on. Hire the best people. Train them properly. Make sure that they have everything
they need to be successful. So they don�t feel like they have to steal that success
from you. Again, it�s always easier to eliminate the motive rather than try and eliminate the
opportunity. Studies have shown that employee theft can
account for up to 3% of your gross sales. In a business where 10% profit is doing really,
really well, 3% can be a third of what you�re supposed to be taking home. I hope we�ve
been able to show you at least a couple of ways that you can cut down those losses. Thanks
so much for watching. [0:06:28]
[Audio Ends].