Help! Budget Season Is Here.

It’s time to reflect on this year’s performance and plan for 2015. Is your pricing structure working for you? Are there some new players in the market? Do you have the right team in place to make the goals you will soon be setting? Without some work throughout the year, monitoring the guest experience you and your competition are delivering, along with an analysis of where you are in the market in terms of pricing, your decisions will be based solely on your “gut feelings” on how to proceed with the new marketing plan and budget. Now, I am not dissing the idea of paying attention to your “gut”. With experience, you do come to know how decisions will impact performance. The problem is, sometimes the landscape changes and without some formal monitoring of the environment, you miss the changes and fail to react in time, resulting is missed goals and the ensuing domino effect which is never fun. When changes are realized mid-year, you are left scrambling to reallocate the budget to meet unforeseen needs. Now, while all of your cards are being placed on the table for consideration in next year’s budget, plan to spend resources on finding out how your guests are being treated in your “house” and your competitors’. Plan to do some secret shopping in the areas of customer satisfaction and pricing. High Impact2, Inc. has the time and expertise to help with a mystery shopping program as well as other helpful tools. Give us a call and let’s chat about how you can get the information that, along with your “gut,” will drive good long term decision making!

Tags: secret shopping, mystery shopping, competition, sales, marketing, budget, marketing plan, goals