BII trustee Martyn Cozens MBII is described as being an inspirational leader with an impressive record of success in the beer industry. With 40 years’ experience in the brewing sector, he is a non-executive director of Tiny Rebel, Wadworths, Heron & Brearely and Cask Marque. Here, Martyn talks about the consumer proposition and why everyone needs to focus on the ‘controllables’ — and not be distracted by the way we would like things to be.
At the time of writing I have just heard the news of the government’s planned support to try and redress the disastrous and ill thought through decisions on business rates. Whilst the revised policy is clearly welcome, it falls well short of addressing the underlying challenges that face publicans today. The need for root and branch reform of the taxation and legislation surrounding pubs is clear. Whilst effective lobbying to secure this reform continues, our reality is this is unlikely to come any time soon.
My mantra to the teams I have led over the years has been to stay focussed on “controlling the controllables” and not getting distracted by the way we would like things to be. This I think has never been more important for today’s publicans.
For me, when you boil it down this is about consistently delighting customers to grow profitable revenue. This is an easy ambition to put on a piece of paper but is much more challenging to consistently deliver. Huge attention to detail at both front and back of house is critical to achieving this. It also requires smart, affordable investment in the both the pub and the team.
For me “delighting a customer” is about them answering three simple questions positively: Were my expectations exceeded? Was it worth what I paid? Would I recommend it to others?
In the businesses I am involved in, I encourage the teams to think carefully about what the customer proposition is for each pub and then set about executing this flawlessly. This means asking questions like what is this pub famous for or what does it want to be famous for and what changes are needed to deliver this? This is where the attention to detail at front of house is so critical to ensure the pub’s look, together with the welcome and guest experience is consistent with how we want it to feel. Clearly this will vary greatly across the diverse range of pubs that we have in the UK, but the principles are the same; Are you making the guest feel welcome, recognised and comfortable? This means not only executing the basics brilliantly but going the extra mile with gestures that may cost little but make a huge difference to the customer.
In my experience the operators that understand this well and are focussed on both delivery and continuous improvement of the guest’s experience, set themselves apart and continue to succeed despite the enormous market challenges. Giving people a reason to get out of the home and spend their hard-earned cash when there are so many choices and pressures has never been more important.
Successful pubs are also great at building key events and occasions into their annual calendar and creating real excitement and points of difference around them. This clearly can cut across a huge range of occasion types, the obvious ones like sport and bank holidays that naturally punctuate our year, but identifying opportunities to build new and innovative events that are not as obvious is critical.
Another big trend we are seeing is people looking for much earlier occasions with breakfast, brunch, lunch and early evening drinks being a much bigger potential source of revenue. There remains headspace for pubs to capitalise on this opportunity to compete with coffee shops and cafes.
So clearly, we are in tough times where it has perhaps never been more difficult to get top line sales growth and convert this into bottom line profit growth. What is clear though is that never have we had to be more adept and more focussed in “controlling the controllable” and delivering an experience that people feel is worth paying for!
