Andy Mullins, co-owner of Sand Hill Road pub group, will be taking part in two sessions at the Pub Leaders Summit on 21 March, including ‘Your Pub’s Potential and How to Maximise It’. We asked him to name some simple things a hotelier can do to refresh the look of their venue.
By Andy Mullins, Sand Hill Road
A simple approach to refreshing your venue can depend on how the term ‘simple’ is approached. Simple can mean cheap and quick, or simple can mean large and costly.
For cheap and quick but with maximum impact, I’d say focus on lighting and music. There’s plenty of extraordinary lighting options to be found if you’re willing to do the legwork. Vintage stores, markets, bazaars and online sales are all great places to find unique, dramatic and cost-effective lighting solutions. Table lamps, re-lighting the back bar, warm white LED strips under booths – these are all simple, cost-effective, quick and impactful to the immediate customer experience.
The second focus on the “cheap and quick” approach to refreshing a venue is music. We’ve battled for years with having managers play the right music at the right time of trade for the right demographic – the effects on the tills by not doing so can be huge. Then we found QSIC. We pay $90 per month for a fully integrated, fully curated, iPhone-managed music solution. It’s made an extraordinary positive contribution to our business. All our songs are now digitally managed to change with major events, weather patterns and live trending in music. As directors of the businesses, we can check in anytime and change the music or volume if we need to. Our customers can now also “play DJ” through the staff and our QSIC app. Cheap, fast and a proven capacity to provide a significant uplift in trade.
Having said all that, if you’ve only got $10 to spend, go buy some air freshener and get rid of the stinky smell of beer in your floors.
Andy Mullins will provide more pearls of wisdom at the Pub Leaders Summit in both the Pub’s Potential session and in the panel Q&A, Expanding Your Estate – Financing Growth and Where To Invest. To hear from Andy Mullins and plenty of other knowledgeable hotel operators, register now at www.publeaders.com.au, and receive the earlybird savings of over $100 per ticket.