Hospitality job loss. A problem worth evangelizing.
“Today’s jobs numbers are devastating for our operators and our employees. The industry has nearly three times more unemployed workers than the next closest industry. As we go into 2021, the availability of the vaccine provides some hope, but it will be months before we start to see recovery for restaurants.” Sean Kennedy, executive vice president of public affairs at the National Restaurant Association.
Sean Kennedy adds, “Owners — from small independents to franchisees — are doing everything they can to survive, but without help from all levels of government, the instability and chaos of the last ten months will continue for the nation’s second-largest private-sector employer.” This from a recent article on restaurantdive.com.
Why evangelize the problem? Let’s define why.
evangelize. verb preach to, exhort, proselytize, spread the gospel to, share the gospel with, tell the gospel to, offer the gospel to …
What’s needed is a religious fervor to point to the importance of something. There are few industries that need our attention as much as hospitality.
Christopher Lochhead and his co-authors of Play Bigger: How Pirates, Dreamers, and Innovators Create and Dominate Markets prove that the best companies evangelize the problem, not the solution. They, of course, bring a solution but without proper emphasis on the problem, they are just seen as competition and not category creators.
The wounded and limping hospitality industry needs evangelists who bring light and focus on the problem along with solutions.
The 100,000 plus restaurants that closed in 2020 will be years coming back. The majority of those who lost their jobs were women. Women of color, even more so.
There were 256,000 additional jobs in February 2021 in the sector. However, employment in leisure and hospitality is down over the year by 3.5 million, or 20.4 percent. It’s safe to assume nearly 2 million of these losses were women.
Evangelism is vital. We started our company aimed at solving problems experienced by spirits and wine makers. As of 2021, no more.
Our first goal is to evangelize the problem of job loss in the hospitality industry. We’ve committed to our shift.
Shared Spirits is leveraging its technology to help restaurants and bars bring back staff. They can’t do it without foot-traffic and new revenue.
Shared Spirits released mobile technology that compliantly converts marketing dollars into drink credits for cocktails, wine, and beer from the participating establishment’s bar menu.
The drinks are deployed via our mobile app to a list of ambassadors/influencers provided by the bar/restaurant.
Those recipients have drinks to share to their colleagues, friends, and connections.
When those drink credits are redeemed at full-value by the recipients at the participating venue Shared Spirits sends the participating establishment 80% of the drink’s price back to the establishment.
A marketing program that drives targeted dollars to the establishment’s top spenders, encourages them to share, and then delivers 80% of the spend back to the establishment is one way to solve a massive revenue issue for the hospitality industry.
There are other significant ways to solve the problem. If we put our collective mindshare together as friends and advocates of the industry, we can make a difference.
If you’d like to learn more about the Bar/Restaurant Revenue Generation Program™️, click here. We are adding 100 cities in 2021. First movers in these cities will be exclusive for 90 days with that time period starting with the first pilot campaign.
You may also be interested in our Spring 2021 State of the Industry Report. Click here for the download.
