7 Tips For Being An Awesome Bartender

As you may know, I’ve been a Bartender for some 20 years now…

I have dedicated my life to it. A few weeks ago, I read somewhere that the industry average is just 30 months…2 and a half years!!  Wow.  But do you know what, I get it. I do. There’s a massive combination of factors contribute to people jacking it in after such a short period of time.  The biggest one, being the unsociable hours and that can put a huge strain on family life.

The other excuse I hear quite often, is money. Well yeah, being an employee will never make you a millionaire. But the same can be said for a whole host of other careers. So I won’t take that one.

My theory is that it actually takes a rare breed to make it behind the stick.  Whenever I have to fill in a form to say which sector I personally fall in, I always put Skilled.  (There is never a perfect fit for Catering).  This gets greeted with all kinds of laughs and derogatory comments. Even this weekend, on 2 separate occasions I was on the receiving end of “So what do you do through the week?” As in, a Bartender is just a part time weekend gig! This used to rile me up, but now I just laugh at them. The way I look at it, I can retrain to do what you’re doing…but to do what I’m doing, yeah 97% of you just couldn’t cut it.

So below are my 7 Big Tips for being an Awesome Bartender and making a career out of it…and getting paid pretty well for it!

Steve the Barman in action

 

1 – Personality

This is vital to being successful. If you don’t smile. If you huff and puff at 10:55pm when a group of 7 come in. If you don’t engage with the customer. If you just suck the life out of the customer when all they want to see is a smile and a friendly face. Then you might as well jack it in now.

Enjoy what you do. Take pride in what you do. Put guests needs before your own.   You can’t learn this. Either you have a personality, or you don’t. This is the biggest crucial factor in a Bartending Career.

 

2 – Looking the Part

No one wants a scruffy Bartender.  Good grooming is essential.  Doesn’t matter what your look is, but you need to have ‘a look’.  Mine now has developed into my Brand. I’m known for my collection of colourful shirts. Not quite Hawaiian, but loud none the less.

Other essentials are washing your hair, having a shave unless your look is the beard…there is a difference between unshaven and rugged though. Washing your hands and cut your nails! And a decent aftershave. No one wants to be served by a sweaty, smelly mess with dirty finger nails.

 

3 – A Great Memory

This is something you can learn. It can develop over time, however speaking to a lot of the old timers, its something we’ve always been good at, right from the early days. The pros, can serve 2 different rounds at the same time. We can spot the regular guest and make their drink while serving someone else so they feel special. But also, more importantly know the prices so you don’t spend 5 minutes at the till. Think about want your customers want; swift, friendly service!

 

4 – Good Knowledge

A customer comes up to the Bar and asks; “What’s that? What does that taste like? What would you mix that with?” You can go from hero to zero in seconds if you fluff your lines here. Know your products. Have suggestions for new drinks. And know what you stock! The amount of Bartenders I meet, that haven’t got the foggiest what they actually stock. Also keep up to date with trade websites and reading magazines, always be keen to learn.

 

5 – Speed

It takes 5 minutes to pour a Gin and Tonic, a Pint and “sorry, what was the last drink?!” Seriously…A Bartenders sole remit is to make the guest feel happy and comfortable and give them a drink as quick as you can! Develop methods and routines. If a customer is trying to find that elusive £20 note to pay for their drink, instead of being all huffy, turn to the next person and get their order. Instead of waiting for another a Bartender to finish with the Peroni Tap, go off and make the Vodka & Tonic.  Speed is king.

 

6 – Good Mental Arithmetic

So, its a busy shift what if the boss says you must ring everything through the till. You’ve got 3 bartenders fighting over one till! What are you gonna do?! Simple, do your maths. Know your prices add it up in your head. As long as the money goes in the till, who cares if it goes in then, or 5 minutes later. Again your first priority is the customer, not making sure that Long Island Iced Tea gets logged at 9:37pm.

 

7 – Being Unique

If you truly want a career in Bartending, you need to bring something else to the party. You need to find your identity and what makes you tick. Mines always been about the party and about the fun.  Now I’ve added to that with my shirts. You obviously need the skills otherwise you’re going nowhere, but having that uniqueness, it just sets you apart.

 

 

Steve the Barman owns and runs Thirst First Ltd, a Mobile Cocktail Bar company that provides the WOW effect for your events. If you have an event coming up, Business or Pleasure, give us a shout and we’ll do our damnedest to help out. Check out; thirstfirst.co.uk

 

 

Keeping Barman Appy (Part 2)

Continuing on from last week, I just wanted to share the rest of the Apps that help me each and every day to run my business; Thirst First Mobile Cocktail Bars.

Apps to me are vital.  Without them, working on the move like I do would be impossible.  Last time I mentioned things like Outlook 365, Xero, Tiny Scan, IFTTT and the awesome Task Task. Have a read here; Keeping Barman Appy (Part 1). In Part 2 I’m going  to share another 7 Apps that I love.

PayPal Here Contactless

Dropbox

I must of admit, I was a late converter to Dropbox.  Because of O365 I used One Drive for Business.  However I found the “For Business” App annoying lacking in functionality.  The normal One Drive is great, but the one that comes as part of the O365 family doesn’t do the job.

Dropbox on the other hand gives me 1TB of storage.  Yes a lot of other cloud storage does too, but Dropbox advantage is that it links seamlessly into everything I use. My iPhone, O365, Outlook on my iPhone and even Tinyscan for my receipts. Its the definite winning platform in my books!

 

LinkedIn

Not the desktop site, but the App!  As a business person I am getting loads of value out of LinkedIn.  Much more than Facebook, but the 2 are completely different.  LinkedIn is all about staying in touch and if used right, i.e.. actually talking to people and not just connecting, so much can happen.  Plus there’s also Connected, Slideshare and Pulse…other LinkedIn apps that keep you in touch with what’s going on.  The best bit for me, is that if you add a new contact to your address book, the next time you open the LinkedIn app it’ll match that person and ask you if you want to connect.  Brilliant!!  Just remember to send them a message when connecting and not just randomly click the connect button. Introduce yourself and be friendly!

 

PayPal Here

This has revolutionised the way I can take money at events.  Its brilliant for any small shops, market stalls, pop ups, mobile food vans, authors and public speakers who have events they’re promoting, etc etc.  A £50 investment in a Contactless Card Reader and a quick download of the app and you’re away!! Yes the fee’s are slightly higher than a proper PDQ machine, however you don’t have the line rental or monthly fees.  I can take anywhere between £200-£1000 on this a month…at this level its cheaper for me to go down this route.

The advantage of PayPal Here over Payleven, iZettle, Worldpay etc is that funds are transferred instantly! Not 3 days later like the rest, but the very second after payment is taken which is brilliant for the cash flow of a small business like mine.  Charges are also taken instantly, so no monthly bills to factor in.

The other cool feature is that if you download PayPal Here on an iPad and you’ve got a fully functional EPOS till system…for FREE.

 

Crowdfire & Publish

2 great Apps for tracking Twitter and Insta interactions.  Crowdfire shows you who’s followed/unfollowed. People who are inactive. It gives you your competitors Stats. It can show any Tweets that have been posted nearby. It has the ability to copy your friends/competitors followers.  Its also available on the desktop too.  Its enabled me to really trim the people I follow to genuine people with interesting stuff to say!

Publish, developed by the same dudes, is for scheduling Tweets and Insta Posts. You can let it publish at recommended times, or set the times yourself. For me, its the best thing I’ve found for the iPhone!

 

FrameMagic – Picture editing app

 

 

FrameMagic

This is all down to personal taste, but for me, FrameMagic is hands down THE BEST app I’ve found for Picture creation for Social Media.  There’s loads of Frames to chose from. Every little detail of the pic can be edited, including background colours, frame sizes, grid layouts. It also has the ability to overlay your logo which is Ace.  But, even better than that, if like me, you use custom Fonts, you can upload them to the App so the Text matches your brand on every platform! In my opinion, its way better and easier to use than Canva et al.

 

iMovie

Apples native Video Editor. It does everything you’ll ever need and unless you’re a real pro, negates the need to spend £80/£250/£1000 on Video Editing software!  Adding effects. Cropping. Stitching 2 or 20 videos together to upload as 1 video. Overlaying Logos. Adding Text. Adding music.  Choosing the Ratio and finished size of film. In fact, for little old me, there is nothing that I can’t do with it.

 

So that’s me done.  I hoped that’s helped in some small way?! Of course, there are other Apps that I LOVE.  Even things like Spotify which helps me with my focus during the day.  All the Facebook Apps are Vital. Twitter. Kindle for Bed time reading.  Tom Tom which takes me directly to someone’s front door (its take me wrong 3 times in 3 years) and because its downloaded to your phone, you never need to worry about data, or a phone signal!  Apple’s Passbook is brilliant for Apple Pay and my Starbucks card!

There are also some apps that EVERYBODY I know uses that I just don’t really have the need for or that over complicates matters.  ToDoist is great, but not necessary for me. The same with Evernote.  At the end of the day, its about what can help you and make your life easier.

If you have other Apps that I’ve not mentioned that you think I’d like, please do mention them below. Sharing is caring…

Until the next time
StB x

 

Steve the Barman owns and runs Thirst First Ltd, a Mobile Cocktail Bar company that provides the WOW effect for your events. If you have an event coming up, Business or Pleasure, give us a shout and we’ll do our damnedest to help out. Check out; thirstfirst.co.uk

 

Keeping Barman Appy (Part 1)

First things first. I’m not a geek. I don’t do gadgets for the sake of it. But I do love a bit of cool tech that is useful to me and makes my life easier.

This Blog Post is about the Apps/Software that make my Working life so easy.  I’ve broken it into 2 parts. 

I’m a Windows user, I have a Win 7 lappy, a Win 8 Tablet…but I also have an iPhone 6+ which, if you are in Business…is THE coolest, most productive phone you could ever own. I have them all talking to each other seamlessly. Which means, no matter where I am, or what gadget I have with me, I always have my “office” close to hand.  Whether that’s today while I’m typing this in Starbucks, or like yesterday while I was at home catching up with X Factor and Casualty!

 

Office 365 (Windows)

My whole business is run from O365. Everything! Emails, Calendar, Events, Meetings, Tasks, To Do Lists, Contacts etc etc are managed in Outlook.  All my design work is done in Publisher, which I LOVE.  I’ve been using that since the old days in 2003..if not earlier!  I also do use Excel and Word a little bit, but Outlook and Publisher I couldn’t live without.

Hot tip for Outlook.  If you find yourself typing the same types of emails over and over again, save the text as AutoText.  I have 17 different ones set up…inc 3 different signatures. Yes there’s a separate Signature option, but Autotext is way quicker!!  My Email writing time has been cut by probably 4/5 hours per week. Maybe more! Even from when I was Cut and Pasting from a previous email/word doc.  Thank you to Liz Dolman from Double Click Training for this hot tip.

 

Outlook (iPhone)

I love my iPhone 6+. I don’t like Android and Windows phones are behind the times app wise still. So my emails were okay while on the move using Apples native Mail app, but they still lacked in the attachment department. Then I found Outlook for the iPhone probably about a year ago. It syncs perfectly with O365. But the best it is being able to attach Dropbox/One Drive files so easily. I can send quotes, Cocktail Lists etc etc while on the move, even during an event! Being quick off the mark gives me such an advantage.  Outlook for iPhone is a million miles better than Apples Mail app in my opinion. Give it a go for 2 weeks…see how you get on. It is different to manage, but once you’ve mastered it, you’ll love it I’m sure.

 

TaskTask (iPhone)

For such a long time, Outlook Tasks caused me such a headache. Something so useful on Windows, was a real nightmare on the iPhone…or just being on the move! The native Reminders app, quite frankly is a pile of pooh. There was nothing that synced with Outlook. I didn’t want to migrate everything from Microsoft to Google…as I just don’t like Google Docs/Calender etc.  I did play about with ToDoist for a bit…but it just creates a load of extra unnecessary work. I even tried using Evernote as a Task List and Event Note taker. That works for a bit, but no where near as good as Outlook and again creates extra work.  Outlook Tasks ROCK.

Then came along my saviour. TaskTask. Every little tiny detail from Outlook Tasks (even the flags, categories (and colours!), reminder times, work completed and importance level) sync perfectly.  As in absolutely perfectly. Every single little note about an event or enquiry is to hand, no matter where I am – without creating any extra work at all. No flicking between Evernote and Outlook emails, its all right there. TaskTask is my favvy app for work on my iPhone.

TaskTaskApp

 

Xero (Windows & iPhone)

Xero has completely transformed my business. I can see my P&L instantly. I can see where I need to cut costs or how much I’ve spent on Coffee in a given month.  It’s also enabled me to go 100% Paperless.  As all my invoices and receipts are sent and stored in the cloud. (more about that in the next app).  and my PayPal Card Reader also syncs. Yes there is Sage and numerous other bookkeeping software, but they are nothing like Xero. Nothing! Even my Epos all links in.  So many other business programs link in to Xero too.

For more info; contact Nikki Butlin at Athena Business Services. She’ll have you looked up in no time.

 

TinyScan Pro

I use Tinyscan everyday! It takes a piccy of receipts and invoices and saves them as PDFs before automatically syncing them to a Dropbox folder, or emailed directly into Xero awaiting reconciliation.  Yes there’s Receipt Bank that does the same job (ish) but from my experience you still have to reconcile transactions and wait 2/3 days for receipts to be processed. Plus there’s a subscription fee based on usage…my level would be circa £20 a month).  TinyScan Pro for a one off £3.99 eliminates all that faff. Take a pic of a receipt, 5 seconds later you can reconcile the transaction in Xero and bin the receipt! Job Done.

 

IFTTT

I mentioned IFTTT two blog’s ago. In truth, I’m still learning all its capabilities for new recipes, but the amazing thing for me at the moment is to have all my Email Notifications turned off, but so I don’t miss a new enquiry, IFTTT texts me the moment an enquiry form drops into my Outlook inbox, so even during an event…if I get 5 mins…I can send a quote with attachments from Outlook on my Phone! (I don’t even have to type the quote out, as I have a standard Autotext options set up on the iPhone).  Other uses for IFTTT have been Emailing Tweets I’ve favourited to myself to remind me of things. There are literally 1000s of useful productive things that IFTTT can do.  It links to every major Platform/App/Service you could think of!

 

That’s enough for Part 1, I’ll have Part 2 with you by the end of the week with even more cool Apps that I use on a daily basis.

 

What IFTTT recipes do you use?! Do you have any recipes that could help my readers in their daily lives?  Please comment below to share the love.

Wrapping up the Limes

Helloooo there! Replacing the Cocktail Recipe on Friday for the next few weeks is just a ‘normal’ blog.

In my last Blog, I said that after reading Dee Blick’s Marketing book, I was going to concentrate on a few things.  One of those things is Email Marketing and I’m booked into a course where I can learn more about it, courtesy of the lovely ladies at Smart Messenger. I’m hoping to pick up loads of hints and tricks to really get those Cocktail Recipes and my Mailshots rocking.  So in the meantime, I’m just going to bore you with my random musings.

I thought as it’s Friday, I’d share a another funny.  Another Barman wind up!  Although this one is not exclusive to me – I’ve heard this go down many a time – I certainly do enjoy dishing it out.

Spending the bulk of my working career around Cocktails and Spirits, you can imagine that I’ve always used a lot of fresh fruit.  At the moment at Thirsty get through a good box of Limes and punnet’s and punnet’s of Raspberries and Strawberries each week.  Well what happens to all the left overs at the end of the night?  You know, you can never wedge up exactly the right number of Limes can you? So what happens with the leftovers?  Well we can’t waste them…can we?! 😉

I’ve only managed…or even thought to pull this off a couple of times, but it does provide many hours of ridicule after the event. This only really works in the first few shifts of a newbies career behind the stick. You have to get in there quick otherwise you lose the opportunity…

Wrapping up the Limes…

So…

The end of the night comes around and you have plenty of Lime Wedges left over that will naturally just go in the Bin. Well no, not tonight they don’t. Arm your newbie with a nice roll of Cling Film and get them to individually wrap each Lime Wedge to preserve it for use the next shift. “They have to be individually wrapped because if you just cover them in a bowl, the air will get to them and turn them brown”. You can amuse yourself for at least 20 minutes!

For extra value…make sure the Newbie is on the following morning, so they have the pleasure of unwrapping teach Lime Wedge…right before you bin them and get them to chop up fresh limes…

Cruel, but oh so funny!

 

Steve the Barman owns and runs Thirst First Ltd, a Mobile Cocktail Bar company that provides the WOW effect for your events. If you have an event coming up, Business or Pleasure, give us a shout and we’ll do our damnedest to help out. Check out; thirstfirst.co.uk

 

 

Marketing, IFTTT and Refocusing

I won’t lie, August was a great month for me.  I decided back in early July, that August was going to be the month I stepped back a little to take time out and relax. To kind of refocus on a few things.  Business has been going great for me in 2015. Turnover on the previous year has already doubled, yet I found I was still coasting along.  I’d lost direction and a little enthusiasm to be creative and grow Thirst First even more.

So after Bradcamp in Norfolk…

the first thing I decided was to hand over the Cambridgeshire 4N Area Leader role to someone new.  I’d felt that I’d accomplished all I could do for a while, Cambs is absolutely Buzzing and it was time for a new challenge.  But also this would free up a huge amount of time to refocus on my Business.

The second thing I decided was that I was going to have my first Holiday in over 3 years!! Actually getting on a plane and jetting off somewhere!  Even if you’d asked me 4 months ago, I still thought that wouldn’t be achievable this year.

And the third thing was that I was going to use August to plan an Autumn assault ready for my new financial year on the 1st November.

You see, when you’re just coasting along and you’re on your own in the business, you don’t often get a chance to refocus and plan the next stages.  You just continue to do what you’ve been doing successfully for the last 6 months!

Along with the 4N Area Leadership, I also wanted to take a “Sabbatical” from meetings too. 5 weeks out completely. Well, I didn’t do too badly, I only attended 2 meetings.  Come on, its 4N. Its 50% social after all. Its not just about Business, a lot of these guys are my friends too. Going a month without seeing them would be hard!

Roll forward to the 1st of September and what have I achieved?

Well, quite a lot actually.  I have so many plans and so many changes to make. So many adjustments and lots of new things to concentrate on.  The majority of this is down to Dee Blick of The Marketing Gym. I must confess that I’ve still not properly read her 15 Essential Marketing Masterclasses book yet, however I downloaded The Ultimate Small Business Marketing Book on my Kindle App and read the whole thing Cover to Cover in 4 days…and made soooooooo many notes!  This book is brilliant to get you firing again.

The second thing I achieved which is coupled to above, is to achieve a new Working day Focus regime. Inspired by Richard Eaton’s Blog about going offline while on holiday, I wanted to achieve something similar.  I wanted to create habits where I was not constantly going to grab my phone, or respond to emails.  This was going to be a massive ask as after all, it is just me in my Biz.  I can’t afford to ignore enquiries for a whole week. However, I did mange to go 95% off comm’s quite easily actually…and after being back for 3 days, I’m still in the same mindset.

Firstly, I have turned off ALL the notifications off my phone except for Calls and Texts. Everything! Not even leaving the Badge App Icons on to show how many notifications I have on Facebook.  I even turned off my Email Notifications…and they are staying off too!  I will now being responding to emails in the evenings only.  But this is where the cool new tech comes in that allowed me to stay online for 5% of the time.

During a 4Sight at Ely 4N (that I wasn’t supposed to be at), Mark Noel mentioned a service called IFTTT (If This, Then That). I’d heard of it before, but never explored the possibilities. Well, I have to say its completely changed my world.  As I mentioned, I can’t afford to leave enquiries, I’m in a competitive market and I need to be first off the mark as much as I can.

What I managed to set up with IFTTT is amazing.  I now have it forwarding Enquiries via my various Webforms from my Outlook Email Inbox, to me as an SMS Text.  This lets me see Enquiries immediately, without seeing and being tempted by the 30-40 other emails all vying for my attention in my Inbox.

The other cool bit, is that I have auto-text saved on my iPhone, so I can send a quote out immediately and even attach PDFs in a matter of minutes. While I was away in Italy, this actually got me 2 bookings for 2016…and I still had no idea of the other emails in my inbox until I returned home.

IFTTT has so many other possibilities too with a shed load of platforms. Check it out for yourself.

 

So now instead of just aimlessly sitting down at my desk every morning at 7am I have a whole new regime.

On non 4N days, my Alarm is now set for 7am and I’m straight up and out for a Walk. Then I’ll have brekkie and try to do something that Ian Dickson is always banging on about. Eating That Frog for Breakfast.  For me, its my Follow Ups after enquiries, they take me so much time and i never look forward to them.  So now I have them all done by 10am, which now leaves me the rest of the day to concentrate on Dee Blick’s Marketing Regime…

I have my Outlook calender fully scheduled for the next 8 weeks. I have created 27 new Marketing tasks to achieve in those 8 weeks.  I really want to build the corporate side of Thirst First Mobile Cocktail Bars. I’m adamant now that I don’t want to build biz where we’re taking 2/3 events on Saturday. That’s not what I’m about. I want to use my spare capacity through the week for now. That’s what I’m concentrating on. Dee Blicks book is going to help me massively with this.

If you own your own business and you want to grow, I really strongly urge you to go out and buy it, download it and have a good read…and have a Notepad or Evernote ready!  Its given me so much new inspiration.