Issue #11 - It's coming home? ⚽
The back garden barbershop | How to deal with no-shows | Four-minute workouts | The truth about beer goggles | R&B Classics | Thrilling tales of modern capitalism | More
🦾 G O
Can you feel it? 🤞
Apologies to anyone who’s not been glued to Euro 2020 (+1), but we’re finding it impossible not to get caught up in the feel-good factor brought on by England’s win over Germany on Tuesday.*
The win was England’s first over Germany in a knockout match since some game back in 1966.
Strange that we don’t hear more about that one…
Anyway, England doing well in an international tournament is great news for business owners everywhere, as it usually translates into people going out and spending money.
The quarter-final match against Ukraine should see bars, pubs, and pretty much anywhere that has a telly, booked-out and full to capacity.
If you’d sooner avoid the whole thing, then why not advertise your business as a safe space for anyone wanting to give the football a miss?
And if you’re not in the hospitality business, you could run some promotions based upon how England (or any other teams) get on in the tournament.
While you have a think on that, let’s slide tackle our way into Issue #11 of The Backbone, the fortnightly business bulletin from Bionic.
👩🤝👩🏾 S H A R E
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🗣 S H O U T O U T
#BionicBusinessStory - Jamie Stenning Barbering 💈
Bionic spoke to Jamie Stenning to find out how he swapped wood shavings for head shaving and set up a professional hair salon in his back garden.
Bionic: How did you decide to set up your business?
Jamie Stenning: “I worked as a carpenter when I left school but then about two years ago, I decided to try barbering while I was still young enough to do something new. I went to the London School of Barbering and completed a nine-week course then started working at a local barber. When the pandemic hit, I decided to build my own barbers in my back garden, and I've been enjoying hundreds of clients ever since.”
B: Is there anything that made setting up your own business easier?
JS: “Social media has helped especially with promoting my business. I do get a lot of customers through word of mouth, but my Instagram page is the way people can actually see the work I do and the services I offer. That’s what attracts people to come and get a haircut.”
B: How do you feel about technology in business?
JS: “Technology is a big part of my own business because without apps like Instagram and Facebook I would not have half the clients I do.”
B: What are your plans for the future?
JS: “I’ve only really started my business during Covid, so I have been working around it the whole time. It hasn’t been all negative though, it did make it harder to get going but it’s also given me a lot more time to decide the route I want to go down. I’ve been able to do a lot of research and plan the way I want to run my business. I think this will benefit me in the long run.”
You can check out Jamie’s portfolio on his professional Instagram page, jamiestenning_barbering. And click on the barber’s chair below to read more of his #BionicBusinessStory
📩 J O I N
We want to hear about you and your business 🗣
💡 How did you end up running your own business?
😟 As a business owner, what keeps you awake at night?
🤩 What’s your proudest achievement as a business owner?
🤔 What advice would you give to someone starting their own business?
Leave a comment to get involved 👇
📰 N E W S
What’s with all the no-shows? 🤷♀️
The news that pubs and restaurants could finally reopen was greeted with excitement, anticipation, and a slew of bookings as we could all finally go out and enjoy each other’s company.
In groups of no more than six, at least.
And with England looking like they have a great chance of making the finals of the Euros, football-friendly pubs, bars and restaurants may have as many as three full houses to cheer over the next nine days.
The trouble is, many business owners are finding their efforts to make up for lost time and money are being hampered by booked-in customers not turning up.
Even before the pandemic, figures from Foursquare, the local search-and-discovery mobile app, showed that one in five bookings were no-shows, costing the hospitality sector £16 billion a year. These figures have increased exponentially due to the problems posed by the pandemic.
Why do people not show up?
A recent survey from Carbon Free Dining listed the following reasons given by customers for not showing up and not cancelling a booking they had made:
45% don’t cancel because it’s not easy to find cancellation information.
27% don’t cancel because they can’t be bothered.
18% don’t cancel because the restaurant doesn’t send reminders and they forgot they had a booking.
9% don’t cancel because they book several restaurants and decide which they’ll attend nearer to the time.
What can be done about it?
Looking at the reasons above, making sure you make cancellation information is freely available on your website or Google listing is a good place to start.
And sending out email or SMS reminders could also be an option (although it seems a bit rum for customers to place that onus on the venue).
But taking a deposit is probably the most effective (if sometimes unpopular) option.
If you run a restaurant, you could take each customer’s credit card details when the booking is made, on the understanding that a charge will be taken if they cancel last minute or don’t show up at all. It might be worthwhile charging a higher fee for no-shows than for late cancellations.
If you run a pub or bar, you could instead take a five-pound-per-head deposit when the booking is made, which is then knocked off the bill (it’s basically the price of a pint or a small glass of house wine, so customers will have no problem redeeming it).
It might be a bit of a hassle for both yourself and customers, but there’s no doubt that the threat of losing money will help focus customers’ minds and make them think twice about simply not showing up.
✍ S U B S C R I B E
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🤳 S O C I A L
The truth about beer goggles 🥴
An Australian study has confirmed the “beer goggles” phenomenon is true for both genders. But we still don’t quite know why.
80 social drinking students were recruited at a campus pub and campus parties over a three-month period and asked to provide a breathalyser sample before rating the attractiveness of various photographed models.
Here’s what the researchers found:
Among those who hadn’t been drinking at all, they gave an average rating of 3.3 on a scale of 1 to 10.
This increased to 4.3 among people who were moderately inebriated and 4.7 among those who were highly inebriated.
We always need to link these things back to your business, so consider that people will view your brand differentially depending on where they are and what their state of mind is.
And they’ll almost definitely find you more attractive if they’re drunk.
🙏 W E L L N E S S
No time to work out? Yes, you do! 💪
More quick-win wellness tips from Drew Campbell-Griffiths, master nutritionist with a background in fitness training and MMA.
Many people complain that they don't have enough time to complete a workout - sometimes there really aren’t enough hours in the day.
But what if we told you that you don’t need even an hour in the day to do an effective workout?
You don’t even need half an hour.
If you can spare just five minutes a day, you have enough time to be able to improve your fitness, wellbeing and health through an intense workout known as Tabata intervals.
Created by and named after Japanese scientist - Dr Izumi Tabata - one Tabata interval takes four (FOUR!) minutes to complete and consists of just three (THREE!) minutes of actual exercise.
Here’s how it works:
Exercise at 100% for 20 seconds
Rest for 10 seconds
Repeat this process eight times for a total of four minutes.
That’s it. You can use virtually any exercise - cycling, running, bodyweight squats while completing an interval.
Athletes use Tabata intervals to increase their "anaerobic performance", while sedentary workers (like you sat reading this. And me writing it, for that matter) can use them to improve markers of wellbeing, including insulin sensitivity.
A BBC documentary by Dr Michael Mosley investigated the benefits of Tabata intervals when using a bike - after four weeks and a grand total of 12 minutes of actual exercise (he did one interval per week) - his insulin sensitivity improved by a remarkable 24% - all this without getting a sweat on!
But one thing to keep in mind with this type of training is that a gentle one-minute warm-up is recommended, especially if you are doing higher impact and explosive exercises such as burpees or sprints. And there are your five minutes.
For more from Drew, check out Black Belt, White Hat
🗞 R E A D
Employers can claim from the furlough scheme for staff who are self-isolating, but now need will contribute more towards their workers’ wages.
Find out more about this little-known entitlement.
How “Thinking outside the box” helped an Isle of Wight hotel beat the hospitality job crisis and give employees an unexpected pay rise.
🎧 L I S T E N
Playlist
Recommended by Rhian, Customer Marketing Manager at Bionic, R&B Classics hits you with 100 of the hottest R&B classics ever recorded. From Amerie to Warren G via SWV - it’s all going on.
Podcast
Thrilling Tales of Modern Capitalism takes a look at some of the untold stories behind those brands that shape how we all live and work. The episode about how DomiNick’s, a failing pizza joint in Michigan, turned into the delivery-dominating Domino’s pizza is fascinating.
🔥 H A S H T A G
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📊 B U S I N E S S
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🏡 H O U S E K E E P I N G
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🚫 S T O P
Дякую тобі (Dyakuyu tobi)
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See you in a fortnight, by which time it may very well have come home 🏆