Test the change
After all the data was compiled and it validated that serving liquor might be worth a trial run, it was time to put the data to the test.
“You never just do things without testing them first,” he says. “It’s weird, but sometimes the littlest things can throw you out of whack.”
The North Richland Hills location was chosen to be a one-store test market last October because it struggled in that market and management felt liquor might have been a factor. It was also isolated from other Beef’s and the company leaders wouldn’t have to worry about other customers going to a nearby Beef’s and asking why they couldn’t get the same drink.
In addition, a big part of choosing the location was they could trust the person running it. They trusted her and felt that she would rollout the program properly, wouldn’t start serving shots, and would give all of her sales data and check averages.
When the results showed sales were up and there weren’t any unruly drinkers driving their core customer out of the place, they decided that testing a second store a few months later would be a good idea
But before testing the second store, Vojnovic wanted some morefeedback and wanted to hear some different perspectives, so he briefed the organization’s advisory board, which is made
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p of a diverse cross section of franchisees from across the country. He has several boards for different things within the organization, butno matter what the subject, he wants people who won’t always agree with him and tell him what he wants to hear. To get that, he has a mix of older franchisees and some who haven’t been involved with the company as long.
“I think boards are a tremendous asset,” he says. “If you can pick a diverse board that’s going to give you good critical feedback —that you actually listen to them is a huge asset to any leader.”
The board also keeps the leaders in check when making a decision.
“So we aren’t making decisions that don’t sync up with what the franchisees (want) or at least have an opportunity for the franchisees to say, ‘No, that’s not going to work,’ or, ‘Why are you making me spend money on this thing we really don’t need?’ So, that is the mechanism we use to help police our decisions.”
It was agreed to try serving liquor at another location but to keep it quiet and see how it worked out before announcing it company-wide.
“A lot of times, we’re doing a lot of different stuff — tests, smallscale, but we won’t tell anybody until it looks like it might go,” he says. “Because there’s no sense in saying, ‘OK, we are testing liquor; it didn’t work, so we aren’t testing liquor.’
“Normally, you run the test, and then if it looks like it might have some traction, that’s when you start running it by different groups to see how they feel.”
Beef’s eventually tested about 10 stores in different states. “We’ve really tried to make it pretty broad-based,” he says. “One thing I’m also finding out is that this is a big country and people are very different.”
While the test locations were important for the company, so was the amount of time to conduct the study. The company chose to test for a year to get a good sense of how the change will affect it.
“You want to lap sales,” he says. “In our industry, you’re always checking what’s called comp store sales. You’re comparing store sales from one year to the next. It’s hard to say, ‘Well, Nick we were up $200 compared to last week.’ Well, last week, something was going on.
“But, if I compare consistently over a year ago, then I could see for instance North Richland Hills is up 18 percent over a year ago.That’s good data,” he says. “You want to compare apples toapples.”
Although, the company wants to test about 25 locations before making a final decision, results of the change look promising so far. Along with the North Richland Hills store showing an 18 percent increase in sales, the other stores that have been tested are up 3 to4 percent in revenue as of July.
More importantly, Beef ‘O’ Brady locations aren’t turning into the home of raucous college parties, and that helps get buy-in across the organization.
The owner of the North Richland Hills location is now a strong proponent of serving liquor because she has seen it helps sales but doesn’t hurt the brand. She can now tell other franchisees, who may have been hesitant about the change, that it is a good idea. That wouldn’t have been possible without testing the change out in a formal manner.
“When they hear it from us, they might not believe it,” he says. “But, when they hear it from a partner, they go, ‘Wow, this is the real deal.’”
HOW TO REACH: Family Sports Concepts Inc./Beef ‘O’ Brady’s, (813) 226-2333 or www.beefobradys.com
