GEORGE BERNARD SHAW once said, “Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” In the club industry, the most relentless and dangerous issue in need of change is an obsession with the financial outcomes in F&B that we refer to as the “F&B Trap.” Ongoing analysis conducted by Club Benchmarking has revealed a fact-based view of the drivers of financial success over time in a private club and the data shows how the financial outcomes in food and beverage relate to and impact a club’s overall financial success.
If there were no data and the logically associated best practices that flow from those facts, it would be easy see how one might gravitate toward the belief that the financial outcome in F&B is an issue of paramount importance. Unfortunately, even with the facts readily available, there is still widespread misinterpretation of F&B financial outcomes and how they relate to a club’s financial success over time. The F&B Trap is a common (but curable) problem in club boardrooms across the industry.
The newly released Club Benchmarking white paper uses data to present the facts as they relate to F&B financial outcomes. The goal is to free club staff, board, finance and house committee members from the problematic paradigm that a “loss” in F&B is a “bad outcome” that occurs due to mismanagement or lack of efficiency. That paradigm results in thousands of hours of wasted effort across the industry year-in and year-out as new board members enter the boardroom. Time spent running reports, analyzing labor and cost of goods trends, etc., detracts from focus on the financial outcomes that do matter. The F&B Trap is a canard that pulls boards and committees away from healthy club governance.
While we know such an entrenched issue will not be resolved overnight, our hope is that this white paper will convince openminded readers to apply the information in a way that helps their club avoid or escape from the F&B Trap. Access the white paper at clubbenchmarking.com/fb-facts.
Ray Cronin is Club Benchmarking’s founder & chief innovator. He can be reached at [email protected].
