Red Kitchen (Brisbane) - Issue 4 (November 2013)

ed kitchen

Redmako newsletter for QLD hospitality professionals

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ISSUE 4 red kitchen

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Especially in sunny Queensland! November was a month of fun - there was plenty happening in Brisbane to keep us entertained. Our trainers and tutors were busy getting all Grade 12 school-based trainees finished with all their coursework, our Business Brokers have been busy selling local hospitality businesses to keen buyers wanting to start a new venture with the new year, and in the office we’re still working away behind the scenes to ensure all of our hospitality business owners are well looked after. In fact, that begins right here - we’ve put together a bunch of great articles to help you be successful in your business this holiday season.

• Hospitality Industry News - Business Sales Market Surge - Brisbane’s New Eat Street Market • 100% Hospitality, 100% of the Time • Marketing Tip - Stand out this Christmas!

2in the issue: 3 4

• Hospitality Business Tips - Why Provide Free Wi-Fi to Your Customers?

• 5 Biggest Mistakes when Selling a Hospitality Business • Coffee Tech Chat • Marketing Research into ‘Specialist’ Business Brokers • Christmas Recipe Jingle Bells Punch

Thinking of selling

Yes, I want to sell my café in the centre of Brisbane

any QLD cafe, restaurant, fast food store or bar?

STOP Yes, 100% of the time

We are 100%

hospitality brokers

Well, do you deal only with hospitality businesses?

Call Redmako Business Sales NOW www.redmako.com.au

Hospitality Industry News

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Hospitality Business Sales Market Surge

Brisbane’s New Eat Street Markets

It’s that time of year when buyer activity from investors

On the 8 November, Brisbane’s newest food markets

looking for hospitality businesses steadily increases.

were launched!

In fact, we’ve had a number of our listed businesses

Hamilton’s new Eat Street Markets, inspired by Asian

go ‘under offer’, ‘under contract’ and even ‘SOLD’.

street food markets, are hosted in reconfigured shipping containers. It’s a trendy area where some of

We certainly tend to see a spike in sales this time

Brisbane’s favourite chefs and catering businesses

every year, as buyers/investors look to start the new

will be providing international dishes every Friday and

year with fresh opportunities and ventures. Now’s a

Saturday nights, from 4pm to 10pm. Next year the

great time of year to investigate selling your business -

markets will expand to include fresh local produce.

but STOP! If you’re selling a hospitality business, give Redmako Business Sales brokers a call - we sell 100% hospitality, 100% of the time.

100% Hospitality, 100% of the Time

What’s a specialist look like? One definition puts it this way: “A specialist is a person who concentrates primarily on a particular subject or activity”. While other business brokers only spend anything from 8%

to 39% of their time with hospitality businesses, at Redmako Business Sales we spend 100% of our time in hospitality. So what’s a specialist look like?

Redmako Business Sales. We’re Queensland’s only business brokering firm truly specialising in the hospitality industry.

Marketing Tip Stand out this Christmas!

It’s that time again that catches all of us off-guard every year - that’s right, Christmas time is nearly here! Even we’ve been amazed at the number of hospitality businesses offering to take bookings for Christmas parties. If you want your business to stand out this Christmas - not just with Christmas parties, but also with casual walk in customers, you need to get creative.

Here’s a quick marketing tip from our very own Marketing Department: Do what you can to provide customers with NEW experiences they won’t get anywhere else! For example, try using different aromas in your store, making outstanding Christmas latte art, presenting your meals with extra touches, having Christmas activities on your tables for kids - all things to impress customers and raise their mood for the whole day. Aim for things that customers can take a picture of and share with their friends on social media!

To see more tips and ideas, check out our blog at www.redmako.com.au/blog.

“Hospitality is making your guests feel at home, even though you wish they were.” - Proverb

www.redmako.com.au

Hospitality Business Tips

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Why Provide Free Wi-Fi to Your Customers?

If you are in the type of hospitality business where you'd love people to be in your establishment and then stay for a while, one of the best non-food services you can provide is free Wi-Fi. For such a simple (and cost-effective) service, the benefits of free Wi-Fi are: • FREE marketing for your business - all done by your customers on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. This type of marketing can potentially reach hundreds of thousands of people, both locally and globally.

• Lots of customers in your business give it atmosphere and make it look busy and popular. This sends the message that everything you're offering is exactly what they need.

• Customers who sit for hours engrossed in work or study, often working through a few meal times, can order several things including full meals, then snacks and multiple beverages.

• It can encourage people to choose your café as a combined meeting space and work space. For example, students with assignments, sales reps and other business people having impromptu business meetings, and small business owners/operators without premises (e.g. web consultants, freelance graphic designers, photographers, etc).

Even for those who aren’t so tech-savvy, getting an unlimited Wi-Fi service for your business is a relatively straight-forward procedure (head to www.redmako.com.au/blog for more info). For something that has become an essential tool for running your own business, with little to no extra cost you can extend this tool out to your customers and watch the benefits (and customers) roll in.

5 Biggest Mistakes when Selling a Hospitality Business There are a number of mistakes sellers tend to make when putting their hospitality business up for sale. Unfortunately, many sellers learn these mistakes the hard way (and then never again!!). Here are 5 of the biggest mistakes sellers of hospitality businesses make, which ultimately affect the end amount they receive from the sale of their business.

1. Letting the lease run low or out - this means there is no security for a potential buyer (and therefore the business is ‘high risk’ and not worth as much).

2. Not having quality verifiable financial records (i.e. from a certified accountant).

This makes it difficult to substantiate any asking price and can make it harder to sell.

3. Assuming that saving on Broker Fees will be a direct reflection on how much the seller keeps in their hand at the end of the sale. It simply doesn’t work like that! Brokers can do a number of things from saving you money and/or time, to helping sell your business for more money.

4. Not telling employees you are selling the business. Owners assume selling the business is a bad thing for employees - this is not the case.

It is common practice for the new owner to want to ensure (in the contract!) that all employees stay. Your employees are so valuable to potential buyers. If that’s not security, we don’t know what is.

5. Not selling with a specialist. In other words, selling it yourself or through a general business broker or real estate. A generalist who doesn’t specialise in hospitality will try to sell your business the same way as the hair salon and newsagency down the road, when a very different approach is needed.

“Hospitality means primarily the creation of free space where the stranger

can enter and become a friend...” – Henri J.M. Nouwen

Coffee Tech Chat

Here’s a cool one for coffee lovers: check out the free Beanhunter app available for iPhones and Android, which shows you in an instant the coffee shops around your current location plus plenty of reviews and information about each shop. Download the app (for free) and search your business to see what users will find about your store.

Marketing Research into ‘Specialist’ Business Brokers You may have noticed we’ve been talking a lot lately about being 100% hospitality, 100% of the time. We’d like to let you in on some behind-the-scenes research that our marketing team has done.

Whilst doing ‘competitor research’ we found a surprising fact. Many business brokers (and real estates) were advertising and claiming to be the café/restaurant/hospitality specialist. We already knew this wasn’t true, as a lack of specialised and personalised services for hospitality business owners was what originally prompted our launch of Redmako Business Sales. So we decided to investigate. Here’s what our findings showed:

www.redmako.com.au

Hospitality Business Tips

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In other QLD brokers’ total sales portfolios, the biggest portion of hospitality businesses for sale was 38.95% - that’s not even half! How can a ‘specialist’ spend the majority of their time, effort and experience selling businesses outside of hospitality, and then claim to specialise in hospitality?

We wanted Queensland business owners to know the truth: Only Redmako’s sales portfolio is filled with 100% hospitality businesses. We truly specialise in hospitality, 100% of the time.

If you want to sell your business with the hospitality specialists who truly understand your industry, give Redmako Business Sales a call today.

Christmas Recipe Jingle Bells Punch

Method:

Ingredients: • 1 x 250g punnet strawberries, hulled, washed, halved • 1/2 x 125g punnet raspberries • 1/2 x 150g punnet blueberries • 1 ripe kiwifruit, peeled, finely chopped • 1L chilled cranberry fruit juice • 1L chilled lemonade • 500ml chilled pineapple fruit juice • 1/4 cup loosely packed fresh mint leaves

1. Divide the strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and kiwifruit evenly among ice-cube trays. Cover with cold water and place in the freezer until frozen (or overnight).

2. Combine the fruit juices and lemonade juice in a large serving jug. Add the ice cubes Australian Good Taste - December 2004, Page 78 and mint, and stir to combine.

Recipe by Amanda Kelly & Sarah Hobbs Photography by Ian Wallace & John Paul Urizar 3. Serve immediately.

Find out more We have great videos online that explain our three services for hospitality professionals.

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Redmako Finance

Redmako Business Sales

Redmako Hospitality

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