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We're planning the next few months of Brave New Bar and could use your help figuring out what to focus on.

If you have a few minutes to spare, please take this short survey. If you complete it you'll be entered into a drawing for a $50 Visa gift card.

Thank you so much!

Note: last time we did this, about 25% of folks who completed the survey won a gift card, so it's definitely worth the time.

We've previously (8/31 & 9/7) shared some outside-the-box points from Nick Wendowski from Stone's Beer & Beverage Market.

This week I wanted to surface another important aspect of Nick's operations philosophy: how he thinks about solving problems at his business.

Though he uses these strategies at his beer store/distributor, they're just as relevant to bars, restaurants, snd breweries. Honestly, they're relevant to us here at Brave New Bar/BeerMenus as well.

Here are 4 takeaways from my conversation with Nick:

1. Use data—not anecdotal evidence—to drive decision making.

Though it can be tempting, avoid making investments and decisions based only on anecdotal evidence. Relying only on anecdotes leaves you likely to waste resources on things that aren't actually impactful.

Instead, make space and set up systems for you and/or your staff to rely on data. Mine your POS. Track how often customers raise certain complaints. Ask distributors for helpful sales data. Even the smallest amount of data is worth a whole lot of anecdotal evidence.

2. Pump the brakes to mitigate risk of waste.

The desire to urgently make a change is very real sometimes, especially if the folks bringing the issue to your attention are urgent about it.

But you shouldn't act on big changes until you have reliable data.

This will prevent both distractions and waste, 2 things you don't have bandwidth for.

Example: When a server or customer comes to you with a problem they position as urgent, remember that the sky isn't necessarily falling. Move slowly and understand the problem before you act.

3. The problem you hear about isn’t necessarily the root problem.

Keep asking questions to make sure you understand the problem fully. Often as not the problem you start with is not the thing you need to focus on in order to solve the problem.

Example: Customers aren't ordering a new menu item, so you may think there's a problem with its preparation. But don't necessarily turn to the kitchen first—could there instead be a problem with the menu and customers aren't seeing the new item?

4. Once you've identified a problem, talk to your people about it and how to solve it.

This will not only help you understand the problem in a deeper way, but it could bring related or additional problems to light. And an outside perspective can surface other solutions that you may not have even considered.

Check out the interview clip for more from Nick on how to solve problems at your business:

❓ Why?

Because there are QR Menu flows that suck and actually make things worse for customers.

To be clear, we're talking here about the experience of what happens once a customer scans a QR code. I.e. you can have a bad QR Menu experience even if everything pre-scan is great (you have enough codes, staff is good about introducing them, etc.).

Here are the 3 biggest offenders of a bad post-scan QR Menu experience:

1. Customers are brought to a PDF. Hands down this one's the worst. PDFs are hard for customers to deal with because in order to enlarge the menu (almost always necessary on a phone), they have to pinch to zoom. This is tough to do, especially for folks on the less-tech-savvy end of things. It just so happens these are the same people for whom enlarging is most important.
2. The menu doesn't include item descriptions. It's tough to stay on top of website content, so businesses just include item names rather than researching, vetting, and pasting in item descriptions. This means the menu doesn't do any salesmanship work. As with a paper menu, it's best practice to include descriptions for everything you sell.
   
3. The menu doesn't include all items. Similar to the last one, but even more egregious. Updating website content can be time consuming, so instead of having to update every time a beer or cocktail changes, folks just say something like "Ask your server about our rotating drafts."

All of these harm sales because it makes the ordering process harder. Best case scenario it takes longer to decide what to order. Worst case customers just don't want to deal with the QR Menu at all. Which, depending on your service setup, can really throw a wrench into things.

❓ How to do it?

You could create and stay on top of a manual QR Menu experience. Here's what that could look like:

1. Create a menu page on your website. Most website builders offer an easy-to-use and professional-looking menu template that allows you to avoid using a PDF, meaning your menu will be mobile-friendly.
2. Add your menu content. Be sure to include all your menu items and descriptions.
3. Grab the URL from that page and create a QR Code for it. There are many options for this. Here's one.
4. Distribute your QR Code everywhere in your business and train servers and bartenders on introducing it to guests.
5. Every time your menu changes, go to your website and make the updates. You don't want the menu to be outdated, and you want to make sure you're including everything on your menu, including descriptions.

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