Being a module pupil

A willingness to learn separates good licensees from bad, regardless of experience.

Despite having been brought up in the pub since the age of 10, Kara Jefferies, joint licensee at the Kings Head, in Birdwood, a village outside Gloucester, showed she falls into the first camp by taking three core modules of the BIIAB's Profitable Business Portfolio course (PBP), which focus on marketing, motivation and financial control.

Her father, Mike, and his wife, Marg, are taking a back seat to allow Kara and sister Michelle a free run at the business. "A couple of years ago we did look into leasing the pub out and enjoying the rent. But having interviewed numerous people, Michelle and I decided we could do this job as well as anyone," says Kara. "We've just self-funded a £120,000, 60-cover extension and I don't think we've even scratched the surface in terms of potential, which is why I undertook the training."

Turning disaster to opportunity

Major roadworks on the busy A40 outside the pub meant road closures at weekends over several months, leading to a series of gloomy press reports from grim-faced traders. But Kara took a different view, and was interviewed by Severn Sound local radio the day after digging started, reaching 38,000 listeners. She took a positive "business as usual" approach, which won her friends among listeners tired of the pessimism.

"How much would that have cost me in commercial rates?" asks Kara. "Being on the radio took me out of my comfort zone, but after doing the marketing module, I realised I had to turn this to our advantage in every possible way."

However, the real PR coup came when she heard a news bulletin announcing traffic delays of 15 minutes on the road outside the pub. "We were looking out of the window at the traffic and called the radio station to let them know how bad it was. They ended up calling us several times a day telling their audience that it was "now over to Michelle at the Kings Head for a roadworks update'."

Similar interviews followed with BBC Radio Gloucester. Kara adds: "All their local listeners, our target market, know about us now. Again, how much would that kind of marketing have cost us? The road updates were always at peak times, which maximised the number of listeners."

The contractors working on the road also proved good for business, with the pub serving them breakfast, earning them around £75 a day. The pub has six letting rooms and the site foreman was so impressed, he moved from a nearby Travelodge for the 12-week contract.

With increased interest in the pub, Kara carried out a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis on her own pub and the local competition, which prompted her to revamp the menu to include more traditional dishes such as stew and dumplings, and liver and bacon. "Our nearest rival is a village pub serving good-quality restaurant food from midday until 2.30pm and in the evenings. These days people eat at all times, so we've now got an all-day food offer for people not wanting to pay restaurant prices."

This has helped turnover to grow by £60,000, to £225,000 year-on-year. Kara and Michelle are happy with the wet:dry split of 55:45, but expect food sales to represent a larger percentage as more customers use the extension, and they implement further initiatives from their marketing plan.

"Our village pub rivals have a finite amount of business they can do with the space available. We have loads of space as we have a huge garden with a children's play area and a large car park.

"Having been here for 24 years I was taking the business for granted and was also too close to it. We've had a comfortable living, but taking the PBP modules has inspired me to achieve more and step back and look at the pub in a new light."

Getting to grips with the budget

Following the P&L and Budget Control module, Kara spent a day creating an Excel spreadsheet, listing every single wet product the pub sells. "Being free traders we're in a great negotiating position, but I knew we could tighten margins more. I entered products by keg, not barrel, as I wanted to visualise the pints. Then I called in our major suppliers and we renegotiated.

"In a declining free-trade market, our business is important to them and I did play them off against each other. I had my laptop out and spreadsheet open so they knew we meant business. I could key in any figures they gave me and see right down to gross and net profit per pint in pounds and percentages.

"Just one day's work led to a 2% increase in wet GPs, to 61%, which I'm still staggered by. Before the course I felt that my time away from the business was a cost, which is ridiculous. It was a great investment and it's made a huge difference."

Kara is now doing the same for food products and expects at least the same improvement in dry margins. "I've still got lots to do in this area, but I've got a list and am systematically working through it all. I learnt so much from these modules and keep thinking about all the things I've not tackled yet - human nature means you conveniently forget all that you have achieved.''

As an example of how every PBP module is linked to the others, Kara, who has worked as a sales manager for national brewer InBev, asked one of her most valued bar staff Sam Hawkins to write a customer questionnaire requiring in-depth answers to questions rather than the "tick box" approach the pub had operated before.

The aim was to try and grow weekend sales. "I really wanted to find out customers' needs on the physical aspects of the business such as loo cleanliness, staff friendliness and what music they enjoyed. From there I wanted to be able to match or exceed their expectations. In enlisting Sam's help, it enabled me to delegate some of the task."

Making the most of staff

While this was an obvious marketing strategy, the exercise was also motivational for staff member Sam, who has taken ownership of the project as part of the Level 2 NVQ in Customer Service she is working towards at the pub. "People are the biggest asset in any business," says Kara. "At InBev I received great leadership development over the years and regularly set visions, communicated and planned with my team - yet didn't apply it here."

Kara now holds regular staff meetings to communicate her vision of a service quality that should stand out from the competition.

Recently, she drew a map featuring the 28 other licensed retail outlets in the area and asking the team, "why should people come to the Kings Head when they can go to any of these?" They then recalled their personal experiences of good and bad service, which focused their attention on the standards at the Kings Head.

Kara, who received £500 towards the cost of taking the PBP modules from the local Business Link, has also tapped into Gloucestershire HEAT (Hospitality, Education and Tourism), which offers free courses in areas such as customer care, complaint handling and chef excellence programmes. She developed a grid matching particular staff to courses and says they are responding brilliantly. "To date, I haven't done staff cash bonuses or incentives. However, this is an area I want to develop with our staff, but matching it to what they really want at their particular stage in life in terms of personal motivators."

She concludes: "I remember reading about former Licensee of the Year and MA columnist Ali Carter and how she has built her business from turning over £250,000 to £850,000 annually. That's an impressive result from a good operator and I don't see why we can't work towards the same if we put in the same amount of effort.

"I'm good at planning and implementing, but I'm not the most creative person, so that's why the PBP is so good - you are guaranteed ideas that you can personalise to work in your own business. Taking these first three modules of the PBP has opened my mind, I was on the course with other like-minded individuals, so we could bounce ideas off each other, as well as our trainer, who has been in the indust