Issue 3595 of Total
Author | Restaurant owner Inner Counselor Sun Yu
With a loss of 20 million, he crossed the border to do catering
Starting from 280,000, the achievement of the 9 Chinese New Year's Eve night big devil brand
Nei Shenjun: With a loss of 20 million, how did you survive?
Regardless of Li Xinxin, the founder of Restaurant Creation: I didn't sleep all night, and my mother asked me, you won't jump off the building, right? I said I was thinking about what to do tomorrow and how to make my money back.
The next morning, I went downstairs to eat a bowl of noodles, and then pooled 280,000 yuan with my classmates to make "Li Doesn't Care About Burning".
Business depends on thinking ability, starting capital is not important, even if it is only 20,000, I can buy a tricycle to sell skewers.
I came from a landscape design background, and my design thinking pays attention to the combination of various elements. Therefore, after more than nine years of operating catering, the logical concept of this design runs throughout.
When I applied for the senior engineer, the situation in the real estate industry was already bad, and the accompanying garden design market deteriorated, so that at that time all kinds of money could not be collected, before doing catering, I lost 20 million, and only 200,000 remained in the card.
Tangled, confused, not knowing what to do next, it seems that I can only do design. But you have to plan for the next five or even ten years, after all, you have to make money to support your family.
I didn't have any dreams, so I wanted to see what to do with entrepreneurship. It is nothing more than making choices in eating, wearing, living and traveling, and doing catering, because eating comes first. At that time, catering was not only about saving yourself, but also about making money in business.
Based on market research, we found that Yibin barbecue was in a vacuum zone in Chengdu, and there were Leshan barbecue, Emei barbecue and so on. Where there is a vacancy, there is money to be earned, and I am a Yibin person, and I also do this with a strong hometown feeling. Then, start to learn technology, choose names, find shops, and manage according to the company from the first step, including registering brands, and the awareness will be more comprehensive and formal.
In 2014, Li Jiaojiao set up a unique fire roasting technology, taking the lead in playing the "whole cow" barbecue concept, focusing on making night snacks, so the night snack results are very good, everyone calls us the supper big devil.
What people need to eat is fireworks, and although the dining environment that Li does not care about burning is relatively noisy, there is a strong river and lake atmosphere. Drinking requires atmosphere, and the more people there are, the more excited people are, and what they need is noise, not quiet skewers.
In 2015, Li Dongfeng Road store and Jiuyanqiao store opened, participated in the "taste" column of Hunan Satellite TV, and was selected as "the only selected barbecue cuisine of Sichuan cuisine Baiwei", and in 2019, the first overseas cooperative store (Toronto) opened; In 2020, he was invited to shoot CCTV10 "Hometown to Taste".
Li regardless of the development of nearly ten years, there are currently less than 100 in the country, walking relatively slowly, because the degree of barbecue standardization is very difficult, we do small skewers form, the smaller the skewers, the more difficult to bake, from manual skewers, to control the heat will not let the skewers paste or break.
As for overseas stores, our previous Melbourne store was being renovated, but because overseas labor and rent are really high, about 5-10 times that of China, plus they gave up during the epidemic.
The unprofitable brand is cut directly, the unprofitable store is directly closed, and I will not save him.
Catering is getting more and more volatile, and we need to rethink and decide to do more branding. Brands are as vital as people, it is a parabola, there is no guarantee that a brand can always be highly developed, more brands will walk on a few more legs.
In 2018, we made a community hot pot "Sankou Boiling City Well Old Hot Pot", at that time, most of the surrounding areas of the community were mom-and-pop shops, and there were also large store chains such as Dalongyi and Xiaolongkan, but there were relatively few small store chains. The creation of this community hot pot brand is based on the mom-and-pop store as a template, using the management method of big brands to do, we invested less than 300,000 yuan in a single store, coupled with marketing and various copywriting communication quickly out of the circle, in one year, this project earned more than 30 million.
Then, in 2020, we planned the old street market, which was a wave, and when it reached 1,000 stores, we sold it in a package. The old street weighing plate is also born from the community hot pot, but the small dish is put into the weighing plate, the bottom of the hot pot pot is replaced with the form of counterfeit vegetables, and a lighter iterative method is adopted, with a smaller area and less labor, to create greater benefits.
Design changes life, visually catches people's attention, creates a sense of scene, and attracts everyone to take photos and check in.
Under the inner roll, a single brand is difficult to break
After precipitation, make a catering incubation platform
Uchisan-kun: Will you stick to catering?
Li Xinxin: I don't change my career, I still work in catering when I am 70 years old, originally I couldn't stay idle, and I spent most of the year running outside.
In the first half of this year, I went to Wuhan, Changsha, Xi'an, Zhengzhou and other places to study, investigate customs and customs, select new categories, and visit stores.
If anyone does well, I will really understand the reason for his good business by joining, learning how to arrange dishes, what meat to use, what price to sell, whether the waiter is smiling, why the 50-year-old waiter's sister is so enthusiastic, and how to play the lights in the store.
Joining is learning, what you really learn can be used for yourself, shouldn't you pay for reading and learning knowledge?
Therefore, I am willing to pay for the team to go out for investigation and study, but you are not allowed to say that others are not delicious, and where there is a problem with others. Because you're not going to be a supervisor, you're going to be a student. And the store we choose to go to must have its advantages, either often queuing, or getting black pearls, on the must-eat list, is to summarize the advantages of others, rather than wearing colored glasses to look at others.
Neisenjun: How do you choose categories and brands?
Li Xinxin: Precipitation and accumulation, summed up a set of their own methodology, small catering big track, the future can be expected.
Every time I go to every city, brush Xiaohongshu, look through public reviews, and see good content, I take screenshots, and sometimes a picture will give rise to a brand. I know how to make noodles, rice noodles, spicy hot, and hot pot, and I have been making a lot of reserves, including choosing names, choosing products, selecting personnel, and choosing shops.
We choose categories to do branding, must be based on market leadership and respect for the market, not what you want to do. To make a brand around high standardization, small catering categories, our company has no chefs since its establishment, only a standardized R&D center.
Compared with Li Jiu, the three brands we launched He Dajiu Quan Beef Skewers, Zhang Sanhua Hot Roast Duck and Miscellaneous Pot Bone Broth Rice Noodles are more standardized, born in the mask period, we polish new models, and in the mask period when no one dares to open a store, we are still looking for shops.
The trend of these three brands basically confirms my prediction during the mask period. The Sichuan-Chongqing rice noodle brand broke out in Chengdu, and roast duck gradually became a small hit this year, and skewers were turned in feng shui.
He Dajiu whole beef skewers focus on whole beef characteristics, and the dishes include skewers, spicy marinades, and small bowl dishes to meet the needs of more customers, with an average consumption of about 60 yuan. In fact, we regrouped it to strengthen the vitality of the brand.
The opening of a He Dajiu store is about 300,000, which is a combination of whole beef skewers, flower roll shops and tea shops. For example, the flower roll shop presented in the form of stalls can increase the number of take-out and takeaway, meet the needs of customers for full-time dining, and bring about an increase in store revenue.
Or, on a street, if you have more "weapons" than your opponents, you have a better chance of surviving and making money.
Taking He Dajiu as an example, the store area is about 220 square meters, there are 18 tables in the store, about 120 tables are received every day, and the turnover rate is 650%; The unit price of customers is 60-70 yuan, the average daily turnover is about 20,000, a month is 600,000, relatively speaking, the bottom of the pot price in Chengdu is not high, will pull down the average gross profit, a single month gross profit is 60%, in terms of cost, monthly is 28,000 store rent, 15 employees, labor costs are about 70,000, and water and electricity marketing miscellaneous expenses are about 30,000.
The single store investment of rice noodles and Zhang Sanhua hot roast duck is within 150,000 yuan, and they have a higher degree of standardization and faster store opening.
Zajin focuses on the rice noodle category, the unit price is 20-23 yuan, there are more than 20 flavors such as bone broth, hot pot, pickled pepper, sauerkraut, tomato, etc., rice noodles are full of chewiness, bone broth original soup boiled for 4 hours, with beef bones, beef brisket and other natural ingredients, but also introduced the special Internet celebrity snack Nanyu fried chicken to diversify products. Our first store investment is about 100,000, the average daily is 4-6,000, the monthly gross profit is 55-58%, the rent and personnel costs are 10,000 and 24,000 respectively, and the water and electricity are 6,000. In July, more than 300 contracts have been signed.
I chose to make rice noodles instead of noodle restaurants, because the standardization of rice noodles is already very high, he only needs different flavors of toppings, toppings can be hot pot base, can be lunch meat, is hairy belly, can be used nationwide, but the noodles are too regional.
Zhang Sanhua hot roast duck, with Sichuan classic brain flower, county flower, waist flower as the core, plus unique base for ironing, to form the characteristic "three flowers", at the same time launched antimony pot hot duck, hot duck blood and other spicy hot products. Since the opening of the main store in March this year, the monthly operating data has reached 300,000. Zhang Sanhua's per capita 25-30 yuan, 15 tables, can sit 120-150 tables a day, average turnover of 1.2-18,000, 5-6 regular employees, running community store mode, small shops with outfits, to meet more dining scenes, currently signed to join about 120.
Neisenjun: Can the brand you build guarantee that every store is profitable?
Li Xinxin: Continuous trial and error, we do more not catering, but research on profit models.
I like to be slow and get used to sinking myself, because doing catering is a lifelong thing, and only by making the brand stable, the probability of his death will be smaller. I can also quickly join the franchise to open 1,000 stores in a short period of time, but there may only be 200 left by the end of the year, and the 800 stores in the middle are not worth it because of manpower and material resources, consumption of funds, and loss of brand power.
There is a saying that taking your time is actually faster, and we are constantly tossing and correcting to make progress. If you go slower, maybe in the second year, third year or even longer, 200 stores will be able to operate healthily, reducing the damage rate of stores to a lower level.
Before incubating each brand, we first try and make mistakes ourselves, and the average trial and error cost of the project is about two or three million.
Palletizing models, matching the number of employees, location selection of stores, customer group selection, and food standards all need to be repeatedly measured and polished.
Site selection determines life and death, we open pure takeaway stores, takeaway + commercial stores, takeaway + community stores, pure community stores, pure CBD stores all models. Unlike the peak of dining in CBD shops and community stores, CBD restaurants eat in the middle of the day and no one the rest of the time. Although there is no obvious peak period for community stores, he will have orders one after another, which is a long-term business.
After testing each model, I can tell the franchisee what rental price range the brand is suitable for, and what the core audience is. After the store is selected, he will sit and make money, and if the store is not well chosen, no matter how much he tosses.
Uchisan-kun: What are you doing? What's the point?
Li Xinxin: What we are doing is a catering incubation platform, not a simple merger and acquisition. Everyone treats me like an old hen, because there are more eggs, which is more like a catering vane.
There is a problem with mergers and acquisitions, the brand owner may be the original husband and wife boss, their personal pattern and cognition are likely to affect the brand direction, after all, they are shareholders. For example, if you put 5 million ads today and spend 3 million to build a team tomorrow, they will feel that it is not necessary, and it is better to divide the money directly. This is not conducive to the healthy long-term development of the brand.
Therefore, there is a unified professional management team, focusing on building brands and profit models, and everyone can make money by doing a good job of the brand.
We finish the detour that should be taken by ourselves, and then incubate the brand and open the franchise. Because what we do is to help the franchisees settle the accounts, they make money, the headquarters has wool to eat, otherwise you are cutting leeks. We want to be a shepherd, raise and fatten each sheep, and I cut wool every year to make money, which is a relatively healthy and virtuous cycle relationship between the headquarters and agents and franchisees.
Immersed in complaints, it is better to look for a set of solutions
When you make meals, you have to treat each other with sincerity
Neisenjun: Brand stores are scattered all over the country, how to integrate quickly? How does the headquarters maintain relationships with franchisees?
Li Xinxin: Adapt measures to local conditions and follow the trend. Strict implementation of product standards; Insist on packaging and marketing; Be friends with customers.
Zhang Sanhua's hot roast duck entered Xi'an, and customers first sent two steamed buns after entering the store, and northwesterners had a strong demand for satiety; When you come to Henan, start with braised noodles or spicy soup, adapt to local conditions rather than change the market, do not try to educate the market, that is, follow the flow and gradually integrate into the region.
Franchisees are also entrepreneurs, I give you easy templates, mature store models, but you can't hold the mentality of "I will make money if I take your brand", why are you lucky to make money just starting to do catering?
There is a prerequisite for making money, you must execute in place, learn in place, and be more diligent, so that you have the opportunity to make money in the market.
First of all, strictly implement product standards. There was a franchisee who complained that the store was not profitable, we went to visit unexpectedly, and found that the oil and meat used in his store were self-picked, and did not use the ingredients of the headquarters.
Second, learn to shoot TikTok and packaging, and use short video bonuses to let customers know what you are doing and what ingredients you are selling.
Third, make friends with customers, establish in-depth services and contacts, and actively add customer WeChat. To do business is to treat each other with sincerity, the restaurant owner is to make the store himself, people sell well will be trusted, but the brand name is good is useless.
brief summary
There is a saying that when some people do not do well themselves, they say that the environment is not good wherever they go, and they complain at every turn.
There are times when there are times when the era is broken, and the focus is on what you are doing, not what the times are doing.