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| Mailing
Address: Sherwood Hospitality #9 - 3151 Lakeshore Road Suite 338 Kelowna, V1W 3S9 British Columbia Canada |
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| Business
Management Relief - Transition Management Improving Customer Perceptions Stepping Back from your Business Business Development and Planning Buying or Selling a Hospitality Business Installing a Proper Management Structure Business
Development and Planning Sherwood Hospitality offers a complete range of business development and training solutions and planning services:
Organizations and the work that they do are changing. Re-engineering, alternative modes of service delivery, the devolution of authority and accountability to appropriate levels are all part of the new equation. The upshot of all these changes is that organizations need more than ever to enhance their planning and reporting mechanisms at all levels. Typically, a business plan spans three to five years and links lower level work plans with the strategic plan of the organization. Activities at all levels need to be aligned in order to strategically position the business and enable it to successfully compete in an ever-changing environment. Because business-planning demands a focus on core capabilities, resources, results and outcomes, it clarifies accountability issues, thus facilitating performance, business line reviews and resource negotiations. Our approach to business development and training solutions is based on the identification and understanding of an organization's resources and abilities, in conjunction with the identification and analyses of market segments. Consultants at Sherwood Hospitality have experience helping organizations implement and use business planning to meet current and future development, planning and control needs. Although we do not prescribe to "the latest management fad", we believe most planning may be described as either platform-based or discovery-driven. Sherwood's approach is to help planners at all levels integrate business planning so that it delivers on promised benefits. (Top) When starting a business or new venture the first, and one of the more important steps, is to prepare a business plan. A business plan is a map of how you are going to start and operate your business. What defines the business plan as a critical element in the evolution of a successful venture? First, the business plan acts as a selling tool for attracting financing. When negotiating with investors, partners and financial institutions the business plan is the document needed to evaluate the investment opportunity. Second, the business plan is a critical management tool. The plan forces entrepreneurs to realistically forecast business activities. It is a dynamic document that changes constantly as new market information becomes available, and acts as a gauge by which success can be measured. Planning is a dynamic management process; the entrepreneur plans, implements, evaluates performance, and re-plans. Finally, the business plan is at the very least a feasibility study. Through the market research, operational plan and financial projections, the entrepreneur evaluates the viability of the venture. The plan becomes a realistic implementation strategy that the entrepreneur is confident he or she can successfully pursue. The business plan can be segmented into five major sections: ► Company/Venture Profile ► Market and Industry Analysis ► Marketing Strategy ► Operational Plan ►
Financial Plan A business plan, like other professional documents, begins with a title page followed by a table of contents and an executive summary. (Top) Sometimes a dispassionate, objective view of your business from a specialist with appropriate skills and experience can help refresh your perceptions and re-focus your thinking. It is very easy to be so over-involved that you do not see the forest for the trees. Please consider us when you want someone to have a general look at your business to help identify opportunities and weaknesses, or spot things you have missed. We can come to you, evaluate your business and present you with a detailed, written analysis that is invaluable for strategic planning, finance applications or sale of your business. If you have a particular purpose, we are also happy to look at any specific aspects of your business where you may require assistance. Our business advice is particularly useful in the following circumstances: ► Where your need for expert skills is for a limited time; ► When you cannot afford to carry a permanent overhead; ► When you or your staff do not have the time; ► When you or your staff do not have the skills; ► When you want an unbiased, objective viewpoint, free from internal politics; ► When you want to bring new ideas or thinking into your business; ► When you want to make the transition from a small business to a properly structured company; ► When you want to expand into multiple locations; ► When you want to sell your business. (Top) Buying or Selling a Hospitality BusinessBuying a Hospitality BusinessIf you are thinking of buying a hospitality business, an evaluation from someone who knows the industry, the law, accounting practice, sources of finance, the rules of location and the likely viability of a broad range of hospitality business configurations could save you a great deal of time and money. We can even help you look for a suitable business to purchase. By matching your budget, your skills and your desired lifestyle to a suitable business, we can help you make the right choice. We can even help you to run it while you settle in and learn the ropes. Most importantly, we can help you avoid an expensive disaster. Selling a Hospitality BusinessSelling your hospitality business can be quite a difficult, time-consuming and expensive process. Ideally, you should begin to prepare for the sale at least 18 months before you begin to advertise. Prior to sale, we can help you prepare an appropriate set of accounts and figures that present your business in the best light, and we can assist you to increase the public profile of your business — both of which will help you gain the maximum selling price. When it comes time to advertise your business, we can save you money. We know the different sorts of potential buyers for your business, and we know the most effective methods of reaching them. The skills we have developed in colour document and multi-media production (through our training activities) come in very handy — they allow us to construct attention grabbing marketing materials cheaply and quickly. We can also advertise your business through this web site, and spread the word through our highly developed personal network. (Top) Improving customer perceptionsYour customers are acutely aware of the value of money, as economic circumstances remain difficult. You may be experiencing slow trade while your competitors are busy. Alternately, you may be spending a great deal on marketing with no satisfactory results, or you may be discounting and eroding your margin. We can often offer you a far more satisfactory solution to the problem of building your business by showing you how to control and alter the perceptions your customers have of your business and by carefully analyzing opportunities you may have to increase your income. We achieve this by using objective customer perception surveying to provide the information and essential feedback necessary to create a customer driven business. Normally, we would organize perception surveys as a matter of course before we commit money to advertising any business. There is no point spending to lure customers in if they are only going to visit once and never return — not because your standards are low, but more commonly because your standards are ‘average’. We conduct perception surveys by sending a number of specially trained researchers into your business to conduct customer transactions and evaluate your performance against strict criteria that we have developed over many years. Once an appropriate sample has been gathered, we can collate and analyze the results into a detailed written report that clearly identifies your strengths, weaknesses and opportunities. Typically, a perception report would contain sections on your telephone handling, environment, presentation, food and beverage quality, customer service and selling skills. (Top) Improving profitWe can teach you and your staff how to introduce and, more importantly, use strict control systems for each of the major categories on your profit and loss reports. Many businesses either have no control at all or swamp their managers with expensive information they do not know how to use. Starting with your business income, we can assist you to increase your customer numbers and your customer average sale — the keys to income growth. Then we can show you how to reduce your wages and salary costs, food and beverage costs and controllable overheads. Profit is the result of tight control and effective management. We can also show you how to gain far more relevant information from your cash registers and your computer, or we can teach your staff to use simple manual control procedures. Our control systems do not bog your people down in unnecessary data input or paperwork, and can be structured in a variety of ways according to your needs and your budget. (Top) Relief - Transition ManagementSherwood Hospitality offers interim management services on a contract basis to fill specific business needs. Many companies are using a leaner management structure and our interim management service can facilitate structural change with minimum disruption by undertaking:
· Management transition · Relief management
We provide interim management on a temporary or contract basis to meet specific business needs.
We also offer relief management to both large and small hospitality businesses by filling the needs caused by absence or a change in management.
Our service provides continuity, security and peace of mind for the client knowing that the business will be run professionally during this period. Installing a proper management structureOnce your business reaches a certain size, it must have an appropriate structure, capable of handling the demands of your business activity and flexible enough to react to rapid changes in market fashions or economic environment. The broad rules for business structures are: You must have a realistic business plan covering the next five years Where do you want your business to go? Your pyramid must be as flat as possible. The more layers you have in your business, the more you complicate communication and bind the line staff with bureaucracy. You must make a clear distinction between supervision and management. Supervisors run the day to day affairs of a business, i.e. they control the teams who do the work that the business derives it's income from; a supervisor is concerned with today, tomorrow, next week and a few weeks into the future. A manager is responsible for the long-term growth and development of the business, and is concerned with the time period from one month to five years ahead. These responsibilities are separate. Commonly, when a business is structured badly managers and supervisors trip over each other trying to do the same job, while nobody is looking after the big picture and thinking ahead. Everyone must only dance to one master. Reporting lines must be clear and everyone should have only one ‘boss’. For example, it is not acceptable for a manager to bypass a supervisor and direct the line staff; this creates divisiveness and confusion. The standard test to see if this has been achieved is to ask any member of staff: ‘Who do you work for?' If the answer is unclear or the staff member nominates multiple ‘bosses’, you have a situation where productivity will be lost and staff turnover will be higher than necessary. (Note: This is a simplistic rendering of what can be a complicated issue. The finer points of reporting and structuring are outside the scope of this document). Everyone must know exactly what their job is, and how they are judged. This issue is simple: How can you kick a goal if the goal posts are not stationary and visible? In a well structured business you should be able to walk up to any member of staff and ask: ‘What exactly is your job, and how does your superior judge if you are doing your job well or not?' and get an accurate, consistent answer. In the absence of staff having this information, productivity will be lost, conflict will arise and performance assessment will have to be based on a subjective rather than an objective basis. Job Descriptions should be based on responsibilities, not tasks. An effective Job Description is not a task list or a duty statement — rather, it defines responsibilities and forces an employee to take control of their own performance. In order to make a manager or supervisor accountable, you must allow them to choose who comes into their team and who leaves their team? The responsibility for staff recruitment (and training) must go hand in hand with team leadership, otherwise team leaders have the perfect excuse for the non performance of staff: ‘I did not hire them,’ or ‘I did not train them.’ The 10 to 1 rule must be adhered to. Each manager or supervisor should have no more than 10 people reporting to them. With any more, control and personal development becomes difficult to accomplish. Regular, objective performance appraisal must be carried out on all personnel. Monthly informal performance appraisal should be the primary tool for the direction of a medium sized, or large business. Performance Appraisal should constantly refer back to the responsibilities defined in the person's Job Description and should set clear, challenging goals for the future. We can help you to structure your business in the most professional and appropriate manner if you get your structure right, your staff will run your business. (Top) Stepping back from your businessIt’s reasonable to expect to work long hours and undergo a great deal of stress while you are building a new business, but there comes a time when you might want to withdraw and enjoy the lifestyle that a reasonable income can provide. Sometimes this is not as easy as it might seem. Before you can step back from your business, you have to get somebody else to be able to run it as well or better than you, otherwise all your good work will unravel, and you’ll be called back to sort out an expensive and traumatic mess. You can easily end up working harder than you were before. Your business may need to be restructured and your key staff may need training before your withdrawal becomes feasible or advisable. We have a proven record of accomplishment of assisting business owners to reclaim control of their lives, so they have the opportunity to pursue their own development or simply spend time out. Unfortunately, many owners leave it too late, and wait until they are in a crisis before they take any action. There is a better way. (Top) MarketingSherwood Hospitality can provide comprehensive strategic support to marketing initiatives. To help clients target their markets more effectively; we offer thorough and objective analyses of current performance compared with sales and marketing efforts. We have helped clients achieve their marketing objectives through the use of the Sherwood Hospitality complete set of marketing services:
Planning marketing programs and designing marketing strategies; Organizing and implementing marketing programs; Primary and secondary marketing research; and analyzing marketing opportunities including the marketing environment, competitors, and buyer behavior. (Top) Customer Perception SurveyingDo you know what your customers really think of your business? More importantly, are you innovative and open-minded. At present, you are probably basing your management on comments from your customers. Research has proven that this type of feedback is not likely to be accurate — people seldom tell the truth in hospitality encounters for fear of conflict or adverse reaction. What if there are aspects of your business that are causing a problem? Ask yourself a basic question: 'Is my business growing?' Lack of growth is a sure sign that something is wrong. Around your area, there will be similar businesses to yours that are in growth mode. Why are they doing so well when you are not? The answer most probably lies in peoples' perceptions of your business. Why do people pass you by and resist trying your establishment? Why do they not give you a go? What are they seeing that you cannot see? Do you want to?
Improve your business and stay ahead of your competitors by basing your managerial decisions on measured reality — and not on risky assumptions. Customer perception surveys are the most accurate marketing tool available to fine-tune your hospitality business. Measured, objective feedback by trained observers is invaluable and powerful. It enables you to identify many concrete opportunities to improve your business, and is vital for growth and increased profit. Our
detailed and informative customer perception surveys will provide
you with valuable information to evaluate: § Telephone manner and handling § Exterior, interior and staff presentation § Customer service standards § Food and beverage delivery § Suggestive selling, up selling and merchandising
Each survey is unique; we create it to specifically suit the needs of your business and particular style of your operation. The report is presented to you in an easy-to-read and concise form, providing you with an objective means of analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of your business. You have a control system over your accounting. Why not have a control system over the most important aspect of your business — your customer perceptions? Bed and Breakfast Consulting ServicesSpecializing in innkeeper workshops, marketing for new and established inns and on-site consulting. "Consulting for every stage of Innkeeping"
Let us help you:
Consulting services Whether it is through one of our "Aspiring Innkeeper Seminars", or direct One-on-One Consulting, Sherwood Hospitality can help you learn about opening a Bed & Breakfast from identifying potential B&B properties to customizing a marketing plan for your specific area. Our Specialty is One-On-One Consultation with the Innkeepers. On-Site Consultation Sometimes Working by Phone Conference Works just as Well and is More Immediate. Phone Conference A Trained Staff is a Critical Ingredient to a Successfully Run Bed and Breakfast. Staff Training (Top) |