Have you struggled with the hiring and retaining of good staff? The real cost of doing business? or Wage costs?
If you said yes to any of these questions then your going to want to listen to some advice from Damian Doyle, the man who opened up the first Zarraffas Cafe in Toowoomba. He had a lot of business advice on these issues for small business.
Shaun: Why don’t you tell me a little bit about how you got involved in running your own business, Zarraffas Cafe in Queensland?
Damian: We decided that we wanted to expand our own business about 9 years ago. We were living on the Gold Coast at the time and I was working for one of the national vehicle manufacturers and we were continuing to look around for business.
We became involved as customers of the Zarraffas Cafe down on the gold coast.
One afternoon my wife and I were planning life sitting in the Zarraffas store and the store was for sale. We said why don’t we give this a go?
Neither of us had any Hospitality background. Very much retail based people.
We had the skillset for it but we didn’t know how to make coffee.
So we approached Zarraffas Cafe and sort of said why don’t we give these guys a try.
Shaun: What have you done with your Zarraffas store that’s unique to the Queensland coffee experience?
Damian: We brought the brand to Toowoomba, 8 years ago.
Which was a drive-thru. The brand wasn’t very well known but the Drive-thru scenario was what we marketed and what we showed we could provide for the community.
We also opened up our second store, and then another.
So we sort of grew the business rapidly over the last 3 or 4 years.
We settled in and went pretty hard, that’s always the case with small business and particularly a franchise hospitality business.
Shaun: What are the biggest challenges as a small business owner that you face that others in the community are also facing in Queensland?
Damian: We’ve been very fortunate with our staffing. We’ve been in business for 8 years and I still have staff that have been working with me from day one. Hospitality and retail struggle with holding onto good people, hiring and retaining.
Our industry is not necessarily seen as an industry that you can carve a career out of. It’s more of a stepping stone.
In terms of employment that is one of the biggest challenges, we face in the Hospitality industry.
We’ve helped a lot of kids come through year eleven and twelve who finished university and went on to other careers.
That’s the biggest challenge in the industry.
Shaun: What’s an example of another challenge that most business owners have to face?
Damian: The biggest challenge is the real cost of doing business at the moment.
That can go on over a number of areas.
Rental prices, we are seeing some increases in commercial rental prices at the moment.
I’m lucky I’ve got fantastic landlords. However, I’ve seen a lot of businesses struggling through this challenge.
The other challenge is wage costs. Wage costs are always a challenge for small business.
Our industry is seen as a 7-day a week business and the hours are getting longer, in terms of what our customers require of us, they want us to be open longer.
The debate is around penalty rates.
The weekends are no longer the weekends anymore.
Shaun: What’s some advice that you can offer to small business owners and operators?
Damian: Probably the best bit of advice that i can give.
If you are looking for results, make sure you measure the results. Don’t be convinced that if you go and spend x number of dollars on a radio and tv campaign that you are going to get the results that they promise you.
Earlier on in my career, I learned that don’t just market for market sakes.
My only advice is plan what you want to do and what you want to achieve.
In terms of marketing look at the good people. Look at the people who are making success.