Sample result
90-Day Marketing Plan Builder for Restaurants
The owner asked this:"The quarter is on top of me and I have a list of twelve marketing ideas I never start. We are 24 people across the two locations and I want to raise operating margin without touching menu prices."
① The quarter's hours budget
Nine hours a week. One hundred and seventeen across the quarter. That is the real budget, and it looks nothing like a list of twelve ideas.
The 18 operations people contribute no hours at all: through Tuesday-to-Friday lunch and Sunday midday they are serving, and that slot is not touched. Three names come out of the 6 in admin, each with a slot of their own.
| Person or post | Free hours per week | Slot they come out of | What they stop doing in those hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| You | 4 | Tuesday and Thursday, 3:00 to 5:00 p.m., lunch already closed | The till count, which moves to the administrator |
| Administrator | 3 | Monday morning | Building the market order by hand; it goes on a template |
| Own-delivery assistant | 2 | Wednesday, 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. | Answering stray WhatsApp messages in the hollow slot |
| Floor manager | 0 | — | Nothing: their part sits inside the shift, not on top of it |
| Total | 9 | — | 117 hours across thirteen weeks |
Twelve ideas split across 9 hours give 45 minutes per idea per week, and nothing gets finished in 45 minutes. That is where the three-front ceiling comes from: from the subtraction, not from a preference.
Those 9 hours are already paid for inside the 28% labour cost, so the plan does not ask you to hire anyone: it asks you to stop doing something. The floor manager's zero is deliberate. The card inside the check and the server's one-line pitch are shift work, they cost zero marketing hours and they are the piece more people see than any other all week. Illustrative figures, built from what you handed over: check each person's slot against the real rota before committing it.
② What gets switched off to make room
No front comes in unless something goes out. This is the part that hurts, and the one that makes the rest possible.
| What is done today | Hours per week | What number it moved | Stays, switched off or waiting | What replaces it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Five weekly Instagram posts with no plan | 2.5 | None on record; reach never reaches the till | Cut to two | The two that remain belong to the Saturday front |
| Permanent 15% discount on the delivery platform | 0 of work, and it eats margin | Nothing for months: orders sit where they were | Switched off | A piece of your own costed under the 32% ceiling |
| Monthly "tag three friends" giveaway | 1.5 | Followers who never come back to the table | Switched off | The permission list of the third front |
| WhatsApp answered whenever someone gets through | 3 | Bookings, with no record of how many | Put in order | Two fixed windows a day and a saved reply outside them |
| Rewriting the menu descriptions | — | The biggest margin leak they have | Held for next quarter | Nothing: it is menu work, not campaign work |
| Hours freed | 5 | — | 7 a week left for the three fronts | Two stay alive: one post and one window |
The 15% discount row gives back the most money and is the only one that switches off with no work. A 30,000 COP dish at 34% food cost carries 10,200 COP of market cost; discounted 15% the guest pays 25,500 COP while the cost stays at 10,200, so effective food cost jumps to 40% — eight points above the 32% this house set as its ceiling for a piece on promotion. That discount was not a campaign: it was the menu price, cheaper and never said out loud. Illustrative figures.
③ Three fronts and the missing figure
The year's goal —operating margin from 8% to 14% without raising menu prices— asks for a quarter of the road this quarter: 1.5 points on 214,000,000 COP a month is 3,210,000 COP of extra profit each month, 9,630,000 COP across the thirteen weeks. At the contribution margin of one cover (48,000 COP minus the 34% plate: 31,680 COP) that is 101 extra covers a month.
| Front | Number it moves | Extra covers per week | Contribution margin per cover | Hours per week | Starting week |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 · From the platform to own delivery | Own orders as a share of all delivery | 15 orders, not dining-room covers | 7,440 COP of difference per order | 2 | 1 |
| 2 · Saturday midday | Covers on Saturday between 12:00 and 3:00 p.m. | 12 per Saturday, 52 a month | 31,680 COP | 3 | 3 |
| 3 · Your own WhatsApp list | People on record with written permission | 0 this quarter, and it says so | — | 2 | 7, and only if the day-30 cut-off left front 1 alive |
| Quarter total | — | — | 6,281,280 COP | 7 | — |
Saturday midday is not among your peak moments —Sunday is— and the room already opens with the brigade paid: the extra cover leaves full contribution margin. It anchors on the Sancocho de tres carnes, 46,000 COP with 14,260 COP of plate. Anchoring on the Bandeja de la casa was ruled out: at 38,000 COP with 14,060 COP of plate it lands well above the ceiling, and there the problem is not the offer, it is the menu price.
SUPUESTO: the food cost ceiling a promoted piece can carry is taken from the one Sazón de Origen declared for its menu, not from an industry figure — there is no universal percentage: it moves by country, by format and by year. Under the declared ceiling the Sancocho gets in and the Bandeja does not. If the real ceiling were 3 points lower, front 2 is left without an anchor dish and has to be re-picked before week 3.
3,348,720 COP are missing. All three fronts complete leave 6,281,280 COP against the 9,630,000 the quarter of the year asks for. It does not get covered by a fourth front, because there are no hours: it gets covered from the other side —plate cost and labour cost— which this plan does not touch. Say it today, not in December. Illustrative figures.
The full example has 2 more part(s): you see them inside the library, with your account.