Why call in a restoration consultant?

As a restaurateur, it's not always easy to manage all aspects of your business, including administration, team management, marketing and so on. But the restaurant profession, especially in such a competitive sector, demands high standards at every level.

That's why restaurateurs sometimes call on consultants to help them manage their business better. The aim is to benefit from advice and recommendations to drive change and boost the restaurant's business. Find out more about the pros and cons of hiring a restaurant consultant. 

When should you call in a consultant for your restaurant?

As an entrepreneur and restaurant manager, you can benefit from the support of a consultant specializing in the hotel and restaurant business at various key moments:

• When setting up your business, to get advice on how to launch it successfully,
• In the event of a drop in activity and sales, to find appropriate solutions,
• If you want to revitalize your offer, your menu and your dishes,
• To re-evaluate your restaurant's prices and ratios,
• To optimize the overall management of your facility,
• If you plan to offer a delivery or takeaway service,
• With the aim ofincreasing the number of customersand optimizing traffic in your restaurant,
• If you're having trouble recruiting staff,
• To improve your company's visibility and communication.

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6 advantages of hiring a consultant for your restaurant

Throughout his mission, the consultant will support you in the creation or development of your restaurant.

1. Evaluate your overall sales and marketing strategy

Most of the time, the restaurant consultant is an entrepreneur from the restaurant business who has changed careers. The consultant is more experienced than the restaurateur, and his or her experience gives him or her a broad view of the business. He can therefore bring to the table the skills he has acquired over the course of his professional career. When a consultant comes to help a restaurateur, skills are multiplied, and thetailor-made support for the restaurateur is often rich in lessons learned. The result is a better grasp of the present, while preparing for the future.

Depending on your needs, you can call on the services of a specialist consultant such as : 

• a culinary consultant or maître d'hôtel for your kitchen or dining room needs,
• a communications agency or community manager for your communication needs,
• a chartered accountant or lawyer for your administrative and/or financial needs...

2. Analyze your offer

The consultant will scrutinize every facet of your restaurant. The aim is to provide a detailed report on the situation, and propose solutions tooptimize your offering.

It will look at various aspects: 

• Customer experience: Enhance the customer experience with tips on welcoming customers, digitalizing the customer journey, maximizing loyalty, etc.
• A la carte, menus, dishes: The consultant will put all his expertise, passion and know-how at your establishment's service to define your offering, your menus, your choice of raw materials and suppliers, or to enhance your current offering.
• Restaurant identity: you'll receive advice on how to develop your restaurant'sbrand identity, reputation and popularity.
• Waste management: in mass catering, with recommendations on loss management, and in commercial catering, with advice on how to avoid food waste.

3. Examine your financial situation and profitability

The cost of raw materials, utilities, staff costs, taxes... These are all elements that can quickly lead to the loss of your restaurant. That's why many restaurant owners turn to consultants to optimize costs and boost profitability.

👉 To find out more: How to balance your restaurant budget?

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4. Improve team management

Training and managing teams is a challenge for young entrepreneurs and restaurateurs. Restaurant consultants can help you effectively train your team members to improve their performance.

Among the solutions provided, the consultant can, for example, propose training courses for your team to improve service quality (training in service techniques, product knowledge, customer management, food safety, reservation management, etc.). 

Restaurant consultants can help you set up an effective management system: weekly meetings, staff scheduling, etc. 

👉 To find out more: 9 tips for recruiting restaurant staff

5. Helping restaurateurs with administrative management

The administrative and legal aspects of the hotel and restaurant business are not always easy to understand for restaurateurs. It's a good idea to surround yourself with the right people to ensure that you're properly informed, supported and protected. 

As a legal, administrative and/or accounting expert, the consultant will be able to support you on a day-to-day basis at every stage of your project's life. When it comes to setting up your project, the coach can help you draw up a business plan.

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Disadvantages of hiring a consultant for your restaurant

Hiring a consultant is a real commitment. You have to weigh up the pros and cons. Are you ready for criticism and feedback? Are your teams ready for change?

1. Additional cost

Depending on your establishment and your needs, the services of a consultant can represent a certain cost. The budget you allocate to coaching will determine the type of profile and its level of experience.

To be sure you're not throwing your money away, we advise you to choose a consultant with several years' experience in consulting, with positive reviews, solid references and who knows the restaurant industry inside out! Otherwise, it's just not worth it! Hiring a consultant is a long-term investment, which should enable you toincrease your profitability. 

2. Change management 

Are you ready to receive negative criticism or remarks about the way you do things? Even if the consultant doesn't look like Etchebest in Cauchemar en cuisine, he's still likely to raise some negative points about the way you do things. 

Implementing new processes can destabilize your team and have the opposite effect to what you had hoped for. Be well prepared before you start consulting. 

3. The weather

Training teams, implementing new management techniques, providing solutions to increase the average ticket... All this takes time. New processes are implemented step by step. The length of the consultant's assignment will depend not only on your availability, but also on your resources and your teams' ability to implement the change. 

4. To trust

Our consultants all come from the world of hotels and restaurants. Their expertise may be in marketing, cooking, sommellerie, room management, etc. To be effective and productive, the coaching process requires that you have total confidence in the skills and know-how of the consultant involved. That's why we advise you to clearly define your needs, so as to select a profile that best meets your expectations.

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Calling in a catering consultant can be beneficial for very specific needs or total management of the establishment. The result is specialized expertise, strategic advice and improved performance. 

This service can contribute to a restaurant's growth and success.

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Do you want to maximize your profitability or develop your point of sale? Have you thought about digital solutions to save time on order-taking, cash collection, kitchen preparation or business management?

Contact an Innovorder expert for advice tailored to your facility!