To answer the inventory management question, let's start with an industry stat. Do you like stats? Here's one for you:
Studies show that the bar industry loses more than $10 billion each year because they do no have a proper inventory management system in place.
That's $10 BILLION. With a "B".
Do you really need another reason? You do? Seriously? Ok, fine.
First of all, the literal answer to this question is no. Without a modern liquor inventory management system, life will go on, even if you continue to grind out your inventory counts on your trusty old clipboard and prehistoric count sheets . Lightening bolts will not streak angrily from the heavens and surge through your soul if you forge ahead and continue to spend hours re-entering your counts into an Excel spreadsheet (unless you have other issues with God in which case I'd suggest you move to lower ground).
You certainly don't NEED a better, faster, more accurate inventory management system, but of course that all depends on what your personal definition of "need" is?
For instance, do you NEED your smart phone? Do you NEED your high-speed Internet? Do you NEED your DVR to record your favorite shows on Skin-a-Max? Probably not. After all, flip phones and dial-up were cutting-edge technology just 20 years ago. And as far as Game of Thrones is concerned, you just need to make sure you're home to watch it at its scheduled time (hold on, give me 20 minutes and I'll use my Compuserve dial-up to check online to see what time it starts)?
My point is, none of us NEEDS those things. However, if you do plan on taking any one of them away from me, if you could please go ahead and stick an arrow through my neck, as I would like to end my life right now. Because once I know those things exist, and that I can't have them anymore, I don't really have any desire to go on with my life at this point.
In fact, I'd rather spend eternity listening to that awful Internet dial-up screeching sound than live without my technology. Remember that sound? Like you were throttling a crying kid (a baby goat, not a real kid, you Neanderthal).
This is not so much a case of "You don't know what you have until it's gone," but instead "You don't know what you have until you have it."
In spite of the comparable benefits that a quality inventory management system provides to bars and restaurants, I find that many owners and managers are still resistant for various stubborn reasons. I mean, I get it. Years ago I remember telling my wife that I didn't need a cell phone. "I've got along just fine up to this point in my life without one," I told her, "and I'll be just fine moving forward without one." Then three months later you would have had to shoot me in the face to pry my Motorola Razor from my cold, dead hands.
Still not convinced? You say you want facts and data backing up my claims? Fine, you big baby.
WHY YOU RESISTI believe the main struggle I deal with when trying to convince owners and managers to try out the Bar Patrol system is that they can hardly stand to have a conversation with one more sales person trying to sell them some piece of crap gimmick that isn't going to shit for their business. I get that. I have the ability to empathize.
The 2nd issue is that they do not step back and look logically at their situation. Their first knee-jerk reaction is to think, "I don't want another frickin' expense to pay for each month." However, they do not (consciously) realize how much their crusty old inventory system is costing them by not monitoring what's going on behind the bar.
COMPARING THE OLD VS. THE NEWYour inventory management system requires you to print out count sheets each week and then walk around taking inventory while flipping through pages and making sloppy tally marks. A modern inventory system all has your products loaded and brings them up in order which is much faster.
Your inventory management system requires you to sit back down at your computer and re-enter all of that data you just recorded into a spreadsheet like Excel. Modern inventory management software syncs all of your entries immediately to an online account or database. Presto! No re-entry.
Your inventory management system uses pour cost percentage as an indicator for well your bar is doing financially, which really only tells you how much profit you made on your products (i.e. 25% pour cost means you made a gross profit of 75%). It doesn't tell you what your pour cost percentage SHOULD be.
A modern inventory system uses variance percentage which tells you physically what's missing behind the bar. In other words, it measures what the bartenders rang into the POS system vs. what they actually poured. So perhaps they rang in 25 shots of Grey Goose during the week but the software shows they poured 35 shots. At $9 per shot, you just lost $90 in retail Grey Goose. That's just ONE liquor. Your inventory system does not show this.
THE THREE KEYS TO INVENTORY SUCCESSIf you want real success with your inventory management, there are three steps you need to follow on a consistent basis, and though they heavily apply to inventory management, you should use these three steps throughout your business model, and they are: 1) Set the standards, 2) Monitor the standards, 3) Enforce the standards.
And it's #2 that you cannot do if you don't have a proper system in place. Without #2, $10 BILLION happens. Without #2, your bartenders do #1 which is set the standards, and then all you have left is #3, enforcing the standards, and how in the hell are you supposed to that now???
You get my point. No offense to you, but your system sucks. If you want to stop playing restaurant and be a grown-up, it's time you started running your bar like a business. Look into an affordable system that aligns with your business objectives and take control of your inventory.
Cheers, until next time.
The RB
