Do you know what drives your business? I read an article this morning from the fine folks at RestaurantOwner.com entitled, “Do You Know What Your Key Business Drivers Are?” and while much of what a restaurant relies on to drive its business doesn’t apply to retail wine shops, there are important business drivers for every industry. Here are a few for local wine shops. [level-members]
As that article points out, key business drivers are the answers to the question, “What does it take for me to come to your wine shop?” The combination of drivers will differ from shop to shop, but will usually include some combination of
- Value
- Helpfulness / Friendlines
- Quality
- Selection
- Consistency
- Presentation
It is the combination of these that makes you stand out from the crowd, but it also helps to carve out your own ground. In the restaurant business, that might be romance and ambiance. For wine shops it might be a depth of knowledge in a particular region, country, or varietal.
The real key to key business drivers is understanding them. Talk to your customers to learn what attracts them to your shop and what keeps them coming back. If you’re devoting a lot of energy to something that people aren’t mentioning as a key business driver, route those resources elsewhere and you’ll probably find profits increasing. The key, of course, is talking to your customers to learn what drives them.
[/level-members]