THIS is where your next 10% revenue lift is hiding

I generally stick to our Loaded lane with these newsletters. Back office, labour, inventory, recipes, margins - all the boring, powerful stuff that moves your profitability needle.

But sometimes it pays to break your own rules.

Because while cost control will always be the smartest lever to pull, revenue matters too - and if you're going to chase it, you may as well make sure you're chasing it in the right places.

I've wasted a lot of time and energy trying to grow revenue in ways that are hard, slow, or expensive. More marketing. More customers. More complexity.

But after years of trial and error, here’s what I’ve learned:

The best revenue growth comes from the people already in the building, or likely to already be out and about.

There are three levers worth your time:

• Get existing customers to spend more when they visit
  
  
• Give them a reason to visit more often
  
  
• And grow revenue during your busiest shifts, where demand already exists
  
  

That’s what we’re going to focus on here.

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Increasing Current Customer Spend

Your existing customers are your biggest future revenue asset. Read that a few times, and let it really sink in.

They already like what you do. You've already paid to get them in the door. They're the easiest people to communicate with, and influence. Trying to grow revenue by finding new customers is expensive. Getting more out of the customers you already have? That’s smart, scalable, and entirely in your control. So, let’s go through a few areas where you can make this happen.

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Build a Selling Matrix

A Selling Matrix isn’t just a list of upsells. It’s the blueprint for your customer experience.

It maps out the key points in a guest’s journey where your team can add value - through timing, attention, and the right prompts. Done right, it helps every staff member deliver a consistent, high-quality service that feels natural, not forced.

The process might start and then end with:

• Water is poured within 2 minutes of seating
  
  
• Menus and first drinks are taken within 5 minutes
  
  
• Dessert menus are dropped with a personal recommendation
  
  

To be clear, this isn’t about pushing people to spend more. It’s about creating a smooth, clear, repeatable experience that naturally leads to it (without needing mind readers on your team).

A great Selling Matrix:

• Gives your team structure they can rely on
  
  
• Gives your guests a better, more consistent experience
  
  
• Gives your manager a coaching tool to lift performance

When you build one properly, you stop relying on who’s working, and start trusting the system they’re working within.

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Connect the Dots

Danny Meyer - the guy behind Union Square Hospitality Group, look him up immediately if you don’t know who I’m talking about - calls this “connecting the dots.”

It’s about using what you know about a guest to shape their experience in the moment.

It might be:

• Remembering someone’s go-to order
  
  
• Spotting they’ve come off the mountain and offering something hearty
  
  
• Noticing they always sit outside and pre-setting a table in the sun
  
  

This is where hospitality and revenue meet. When your team connects the dots well, customers spend more, and feel better about it.

This takes awareness, care, and coaching. Start by helping your team notice patterns. Then encourage them to act on them. That’s what turns a good service moment into a memorable one.

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Create Golden Rules

Golden Rules are simple, memorable service behaviours your whole team can live by. They’re not policies. They’re habits. They show your team how to care,  and help turn good intentions into consistent action.

The best ones are short, sticky, and easy to coach around.

A few examples:

• The ¼ Full Rule: If a drink is less than a quarter full, offer the next
  
  
• The Sweet Tooth Rule: Always drop dessert menus with a personal recommendation
  
  
• The “Want Drinks With That?” Rule: For every food order at the counter, ask if they'd like a drink. I know, I know, it sounds like McDonalds, but you’ve just got to find your own style of delivering this.
  
  

These are small, almost micro-moments that increase spend and improve the guest experience at the same time.

Golden Rules are also how your Selling Matrix becomes second nature. They get repeated, coached, and embedded into how your venue runs, until your team does them without thinking.

Drive Repeat Visits

If you get your Selling Matrix right - and your team’s connecting the dots - this part largely takes care of itself.

As long as you’re also hiring great people your customers genuinely love being served by.

Because hospitality is personal. When customers feel known, looked after, and welcomed by people they enjoy being around, they come back.

You don’t need a CRM or fancy loyalty software. You need a team that follows through, and leaves people feeling like they want to return.

Before you spend more on ads or re-engagement tools, make sure you've given people a reason to want to come back in the first place.

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Focus on Growing Busy Periods First

This one feels counterintuitive, but it’s where all the smart operators live.

Instead of obsessing over your quietest day, ask:

“Where do I already have traction - and how do I do more with it?”

If you’re doing 150 covers on a Saturday night, it’s much easier to grow that to 165 than it is to add 15 covers to a slow Tuesday.

And often, your biggest growth opportunity isn’t even your busiest shift - it’s the one with the most headroom before you're full.

That might be:

• A Friday lunch that’s only half full and hasn’t been promoted in a year
  
  
• A Sunday morning with great foot traffic but limited seating
  
  
• A Saturday night where better table turns could fit in a third and final wave
  
  

Start where demand already exists. That’s where you’ll get the fastest, cleanest wins.

Self-Audit To Find Your Best Opportunities

You don’t need a consultant for this bit, just a spreadsheet.

List out your average sales or covers by shift, and look for the ones with the biggest upside. Not the worst performers. The ones with room to grow.

Here’s what that might look like:

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Your top 3 revenue levers here might be:

1️⃣ Friday Dinner - This is already a strong shift, but the town’s buzzing and you’re not making the most of it. You’re still getting walk-ups after your last booking slot, your table turns aren’t dialled in, and your online booking form hasn’t been updated in months. There’s real headroom here, and it won’t take much to lift it.

2️⃣ Saturday Lunch - You’ve got steady covers, strong foot traffic, and the local sport finishes around midday. That’s a wide open window for bigger group bookings and longer table times - but you’re not actively encouraging either. With a couple of nudges, this could become one of your highest-yield shifts.

3️⃣ Saturday Dinner - Very similar to Friday, but you’re capping out too early. Tables are sitting longer than they should, there’s no second wave, and your floor team isn’t pushing bookings in the lead-up. A bit of focus here could make a big difference.

Once you've picked your best 2-3 shifts, build a simple plan to lift revenue in those windows - that might mean refining your floor prompts, encouraging pre-bookings, or setting a focused team incentive to push one key behaviour.

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Bonus: Add an Events & Functions Page

You’d be amazed how many venues miss out on high-spend bookings simply because they haven’t made it easy.

Even a basic functions page on your website can turn casual interest into a $2k booking - fast.

It doesn’t need to be fancy. Just include:

• Your minimum spend or package options
  
  
• A few good photos of the space
  
  
• A clear contact form or phone number
  
  

That’s it.

If someone’s looking for a place to book a birthday, team dinner, or client lunch, they don’t want to dig. They just want to know what’s possible, and how to lock it in.

Make sure they can do that.

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Final Word

You don’t need more complexity to grow revenue. You need a clear plan, a consistent team, and a better use of the demand you already have.

• Build a structured Selling Matrix to deliver a better guest experience and increase spend
  
  
• Train your team to connect the dots and turn regulars into evangelists
  
  
• Focus your energy where it counts - your busiest periods with room to grow
  
  

We’ll be back in the back office tomorrow. But every now and then, it pays to step out front.

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