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.pdfboost your December sales. Some restrictions apply to the Bonus Guest Certificates.
The Bonus Guest Certificates are only good from January 1st until March 31st and cannot be redeemed for cash. This is designed to drive your business on the first three months of the year which are traditionally three slow months. This promotion brings business in during this slow time and it encourages and drives the sales of gift certificates during December and a minimum of $ 100,00 increases the transaction size.
Those Customers who used to spend $ 5000 or $ 7500 on gift certificates now spend $ 10000 and then get $ 12000 / $2000 of which must be spent after the first of the year and before March 31st.
You may think that this is a big discount, giving a $ 2000 ADDED Bonus Guest Certificate. But, you need to understand that ultimately 50% of the Guest Certificates do not get redeemed. The 16.66% discount amounts to only about 8% because not all of these Guest Certificates get used. The sales results will be very impressive.
You can promote the sale of gift certificates through your newsletter and through posters tastefully done in the Restaurant and on your website. If you have 10,000 customers and only 1% participated in the purchase of gift certificates at the minimum purchase of $ 10000, this would be $ 12000 in purchases. If you could enjoy a 10% return, it would be $ 120000.
Putting a dedicated table in the entryway of the Restaurant would make it an easy way for your Guests to purchase the gift certificates and take the job away from an already busy staff. The sole responsibility of this Employee would be to sell the gift certificates. This would be a great temptation for your Guests to purchase while they are visiting your Restaurant. You would put the gift certificates in a nice gift envelope for the Customers; according to the dominations they want (i.e. $ 2000).
The key to increasing and pushing the sales of Gift Certificates is through outstanding dining experiences.
If the Guest “feels good” about their dining experience and they see a table display sign like the one below, sales of gift certificates will soar during December.
One Restaurant location, after putting in the dedicated table, increased their Gift Certificate business by 37% for the first year and then an additional 6% the very next year. This has been a big boost to gift certificate sales. This has also dramatically increased the sales for the first quarter of the next year through the Guest Certificate.
The redemption on the “bonus” Guest certificates was only about 50% which puts your discount of 16,66% to 8,33%. If the Gift Certificates were given in $ 20,00 amounts it means that you would bring in five parties from the $100.00 sale.
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Bonus Discount – The “Bonus” Guest Certificate only has a three month life. This is a very simple promotion and it works. By and large, the people who buy the gift certificates are loyal Customers and it gives you the opportunity to
“reward” their patronage. The “Bonus” Guest Gift Certificate is a different size and color than the regular Gift Certificate. Regular Gift Certificates can be $ 20/ $ 25/ $ 50/ $ 75 or $ 10000 amounts. If the Guest did not have a preference, I would give them 5 – $ 20,00 Gift Certificates for $ 100,00 and 1 – $ 20,00 Guest Certificate.
Any denominations can be combined to make the $100.00 special and then receive $ 12000 worth of value. The redemption rate on regular gift certificates are about 80%, therefore 20% are not redeemed, while only 50% of the Guest Certificates are redeemed and they must be redeemed before 31st March the next year.
Gift certificates are the perfect solution for any special occasion. From celebrating birthdays, graduations and weddings to inspiring higher business performance, gift certificates are always a delight to receive. If you are unsure what to get for a person but you know what restaurant they like then Gift Certificates is the way to go.
Ron has dedicated over 50 years in the restaurant industry to helping Independent Restaurant Operators make more money, thrive and compete in one of the most competitive industries in the world, and find time to enjoy the results of their success
BUILDING WEALTH
From The Economist print edition
Houses in Japan are supposed to be built to withstand earthquakes. Even so, few of them defy demolition for more than a few decades. The housing stock is amazingly young: more than 60% of all Japanese homes were built after 1980 (see chart). That is because there is almost no market for old homes in Japan.
New legislation to be put forward this month will try to remedy that.
The roots of Japan’s unusual housing market go back centuries. Buildings were often razed by earthquakes or fire, so durable houses were rare. Earthquake insurance largely did not exist until the 1990s (and even today is little used).
In post-war Japan land has value but buildings do not. The law separates the ownership of the land and the structure, so the two are distinct in Japanese minds. After the war, the government sought to foster private home-ownership by offering tax incentives for new buildings. The policy was a great success. Arguably too great: by 1968 there were more homes than households to occupy them.
At the same time, tax burdens abound for selling land with old buildings. After around 30 years homes are demolished for new ones to spring up. Because the lifetime of houses is short, cheap construction materials are used and the
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buildings are not maintained. There is no tradition of do-it-yourself home upkeep. Just as there is little interest in secondhand furniture or clothes among the sanitation-obsessed Japanese, so too home-owners prefer to build a new rather than refurbish the old.
There is also a dearth of institutions and expertise that might oil the gears of a market in old houses, from surveyors to judge the quality of a property to banks that assess its value and provide a mortgage. As a result, where 89% of British homes have had more than one owner, and 78% of homes in America and 66% in France, only 13% of Japanese homes have ever been resold.
But attitudes today are changing. The constant rebuilding places an unnecessary drain on people’s financial resources, says Koichi Teramoto of the Ministry of Land. A couple easing into retirement may demolish their house to sell the land in order to move into a smaller abode that they must then build from scratch. Although better-built homes cost more up front, they cost far less over time – as much as one-third less after a few generations, according to Mr. Teramoto. The ministry also worries that the constant demolition is terrible for the environment.
The costs to the wider economy are also great. A home is more than a man’s castle: it is typically his most important financial asset. Not in Japan. For most of the post-war period land prices soared, so the lack of a housing resale market was not a problem. But since the bursting of the property bubble in the early 1990s, most land prices have fallen: some are as much as 80% off their peak. That houses also depreciate in value constrains consumption and adds to deflationary pressures; which in turn pushes people to be particularly cautious savers (more than 50% of Japan’s household wealth is kept as cash in bank accounts) and helps to keep interest rates barely above zero.
To remedy the problem, the prime minister, Yasuo Fukuda, this month plans to introduce new tax rules to encourage the construction of more durable buildings. Under a draft of the “200-year homes” policy, national, regional and municipal property taxes may be reduced by between 25% and 75% for up to seven years for houses that adhere to robust building standards. Mortgages for such homes can be longer (50 years as opposed to the traditional maximum of 35 years) and building approvals will be simpler.
Property experts think these measures are too timid, however. They argue that a true market for used homes needs standardised methods of construction, as well as more transparency about the quality and value of houses. Far more generous tax incentives are vital too. Until then, homes in Japan will continue to fare like the country’s ubiquitous electronic gadgets: be treated as disposable.
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TRANSLATION PRACTICE
(For upper intermediate and advanced students)
1.Kurds are especially happy with a US pledge last September to protect them against Baghdad.
2.India and Pakistan are racing to put warheads on fast-flying missiles, set on a hair trigger, to be launched at first warning or lost to an incoming strike.
3.Efforts to attract investment by selling Ireland abroad also have a long history.
4.British Airways said it would install heart monitors and cordial defibrillators devices on all its aircraft within a year, becoming the first international airline to do so.
5.Military rule and disdain for human rights have supposedly made Nigeria a country not to be visited.
6.Even from the point of view of Britain’s homegrown capitalists, the current policies are failing. That is the only conclusion to be drawn from the Bank of England’s quarterly review and the report of the Commons Treasury and Civil Service Committee.
7.Information comes in floods now, but we haven’t installed a way to use the brains with the capacity to filter and distill it.
8.The decision to ban export of beef and cattle from Portugal was made after a sharp increase in the number of cases last year of «mad cow» disease in cattle grown in Portugal.
9.The candidate said this morning that he was fully aware of the obstacles to be faced and the charges that would be made.
10.The Euro-American democracies have, in the new NATO, a central organization to co-ordinate the military actions of those NATO members which decide they need to act.
11.The US government controls exports of strong encryption products to preserve its capability to decode messages from foreign governments and criminals.
12.There are lessons to be learnt from the cold war, but the inevitability of a peaceful outcome is not one of them.
13.Most Japanese educators concede that a reliance on rote learning and cramming does great damage to creativity, and many universities are moving to include interviews and essay writing in their entrance tests.
14.A personal campaign to acquaint the farmers with the facts about this year’s agricultural price review will be launched by the Minister of Agriculture on Monday.
15.Peru plans to raise $1 billion through bond sales and loans to help the country’s struggling companies restructure debt.
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16.Britain had the most extensive network of double taxation agreements in the world to protect companies trading in Britain and other countries from paying tax twice over.
17.The said tax increases to reduce government borrowing would do little to help recession hit industry or reduce unemployment.
18.The United States used the UN inspection team to send a US spy into Baghdad to install a highly sophisticated electronic eavesdropping system.
19.In his semiannual report to Congress, the US Federal Reserve chairman suggested that “storm clouds massing over the western Pacific and headed our way” might dampen demand for US goods and services just enough to relieve inflationary pressure – and render unnecessary a Fed hike in shortterm rates.
20.Having shed enough of its history to look outward and prosper in Europe, Ireland has retained enough, up to now, to ameliorate the strains of rapid social change. This is a balance that will be difficult to preserve.
21.The general feeling in Egypt is that the government has won its war against the Islamist militants. What it is still not confident enough to do is to allow political Islam a public voice.
22.Japanese consumers have simply not been purchasing many of the highticket items – particularly automobiles and appliances – in sufficient volume to keep Japan’s economy moving at the higher rate business would like to achieve.
23.Although Mr. Kim was the first of the three to embrace the need for a rescue by the International Monetary Fund, he made worrying noises about wanting to renegotiate the deal once he entered office.
24.Mr. Cook is not the first British foreign secretary to arrive in office determined to change things, nor will he be the last to run up against the diplomats’ natural skepticism about his ability to do.
25.The achievement of Ireland is certainly not to be dismissed, as some would have it, as a matter of statistical fudges, subsidies from Europe and tax dodges for multinationals. But lessons for would-be tigers are either difficult to infer or of little use.
26.Scientology tries to turn its followers’ minds and part them from their money; of course it will try to change their lives forever. But so do lots of religions.
27.Any newly elected government can expect to be given the benefit of the doubt by the public.
28.The U.S. Federal law allows the satellite systems to provide network programming only to a viewer who cannot receive the local affiliate of a network using a conventional TV antenna.
29.The United Nations said that a UN delegation would visit China next month to look at what help the country needs to implement its commitments on human rights.
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30.This attack on Serbia may be the start of a new trend to restrain thugs and despots, though it does not look terribly likely.
31.They say ways and means must be found whereby developing countries can expand their exports and increase foreign exchange earnings to pay for such internal programmes as power projects, transport services, exploitation of natural resources and industrialization generally.
32.The US President calls on America to accept a global role.
33.To meet the need for increasingly precise forecasts, meteorologists hope to extend their observational system until it covers every corner of the earth.
34.The chancellor in fact, was quick to warn us against raising false hopes on the basis of the new international support given for the pound.
35.The Prime Minister had told the party meeting that as a tough Prime Minister, he refused to be dictated to by any group.
36.Already the Europeans cannot agree to finance the modernization programs that were considered essential even before enlargement came into the picture.
37.In London the British Government’s special envoy said on returning yesterday from a two-week Far East “fact-finding mission”, that he was disappointed not to have been invited to take part in the talks on the region’s problems.
38.Perhaps BNP (Banque Nationale de Paris) felt left out: it courted Societe General unsuccessfully for two years only to see the bank fall into the arms of Paribas.
39.The retired director of the Brain Institute at the University of California – Los Angeles, devoted his life to studying that complex organ, only to be crippled by a brain disease that leaves its victims unable to care for themselves.
40.Education standards are bound to be hit by the government’s latest round of spending cuts, the Education Secretary admitted yesterday.
41.Japan’s economic success carries inevitable political consequences, and they are bound to be recognized sooner or later.
42.The announcements of his latest trip is bound to intensify suspicions about the objectives of the Government’s manoeuvres.
43.“The US economy already looks fairly bubble-like. Such an economy is bound to slow once stock prices fall, and so the base trend will be a stronger yen once Japan’s economy strengthens”, said a top official in the Finance Ministry.
44.The Chancellor of Germany said he had serious concerns that failure to reach agreement on the EU reforms could lead to complications concerning the European single currency, the euro.
45.Even a public apology from the prime minister for failing to explain his policy failed to turn the tide of opinion in his favour.
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46.European Union leaders last night failed to make any breakthroughs on the future financing of the community.
47.The two social workers stood bail of $500 each. When the youth failed to appear, they were summoned to court and ordered to forfeit $300 each...
48.Will Republicans squabble so acrimoniously to define the soul of their party that they condemn themselves to a protracted civil war that, Iwo years from now, will lead not just to failure to recapture the White House but to failure to keep control of Congress?
49.The old controversy about whether government borrowing imposes a burden on the future has lately been given a new airing. Consider, to begin with, the recipe for making a “primary real burden” of the national debt as laid down by Professor Brown of the University of Virginia.
50.To begin with, the cumulative effect of so many cocktail and other parties amounts to a serious physical drain on the U.N. delegates; considerable stamina is required to stand up to some seven hundred social functions a year.
51.It was freely stated, to begin with, that she was little more than a figurehead, used by the politicians of her party to get back into power on a strong wave of emotion which only she could inspire.
52.To judge living standards, it is better to add to GDP the income earned by foreign assets, and to deduct from it the income paid to foreign creditors.
53.The other leg of the Nissan plan is to raise operating margins from below zero up to 5% within two years.
54.The commercial broadcasting industry convinced Americans that it was “good citizenship to consume news at regular intervals”.
55.In many respects the father of both the supersonic Concorde and the widebodied Airbus airliners, Henri Ziegler lived long enough to see the recent major restructuring of the French aircraft industry.
56.Behind the closed doors of homes ranging from modest apartments to mansions in Virginia, many foreign servants live in silent despair, toiling long hours for low wages but too fearful, isolated or insecure about what will happen to them to complain or break free, human rights advocates and investigators say.
57.It is increasingly recognized that the current peacekeeping resources and powers of the UN are too limited to enable it to intervene effectively in many conflicts. One solution would be to create peace enforcement units, to be made available in clearly defined circumstances.
58.The International Court of Justice is expected to play an increasingly important role in facilitating the peaceful settlement of international legal disputes.
59.German nuclear plant operators will be expected to use the time to work out deals to cancel contracts worth millions with reprocessing centers in France and Britain.
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60.The discussion is expected to focus on four broad subjects: raw materials and world trade, food supplies and agriculture, prospection, production and consumption of energy, and international financial and monetary problems.
61.Apart from trade, the US President will focus on restructuring the US Social Security system. He is likely to enunciate principle to guide reforms, but not offer a specific plan. At the same time, he is expected to propose using part of the budget surplus to start small, individually controlled savings accounts to which both workers and government would make contributions.
62.The U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman noted that the pace of economic growth in the U.S. is “widely expected to moderate” this year, which the Fed would welcome.
63.While offering no proposal of its own on how to salvage the current armsinspection system carried by the UN Special Commission in Iraq, the American delegation is expected to oppose monitoring methods that do not allow surprise inspections.
64.The Home Secretary is expected to make a statement next week on the validity of the practice of allowing outside observers, photographers, and television cameramen to be present at the counting of the votes at a parliamentary election.
65.Treasury sources yesterday confirmed that the next 10-year deal over the monarchy’s government funding was expected to be significantly lower than the current annual increase, agreed under the last Conservative government.
66.Domestically, the debt-ridden and poorly managed state-sector of China is expected to continue to drag down the consumption.
67.“...no government has ever backed demands for greater efficiency with any sort of clear statement of what exactly the police service is supposed to achieve”, a police official stated yesterday.
68.Roads have been built, and by next year every village in Egypt (though not every hamlet) is supposed to have electricity laid on.
69.Foreign secretaries can be useful of course. They are supposed to manage public opinion. They have to keep the House of Commons on side.
70.The US trade representative is said to have reported, in detail, on the latest developments to the EU trade commissioner who plans to visit Beijing for talks on its WTO application next month.
71.True, the euro-group is likely to grow relatively strongly next year. But European financial markets have already been badly buffeted.
72.The US parliamentary revolt against the European Commission was unlikely to get the two-thirds vote needed to succeed.
73.The cutback in housing programmes has been so sharp that the national campaign for the homeless reports that in the next two years no families are likely to be rehoused from the waiting list at all.
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74.The Turkish economy, which had been growing at an average rate above 6% for the past four years, slowed and is likely to expand by only 2% this year.
75.Combine ethnic tensions on the fringes of the Chinese empire with regional tensions along the coast and you have good reason to believe that China / 5 more likely to disintegrate than is commonly believed.
76.The report says that it appears that the building industry is unlikely to be reformed from within and that some form of compulsion will be necessary if reasonable standards of construction and finish are to be secured and jer- ry-building discouraged.
77.No one will refuse to pay less tax, but if they think that by this means they will bribe the electors to vote for them in large numbers, they are likely to be disappointed.
78.The euro is likely to join the dollar as a reserve currency held by central banks around the world, perhaps leading some banks to sell dollars and thereby reduce the value of the American currency.
79.The present fine spell is likely to be brief, predicted the meteorological office last night in its long-range weather forecast.
80.Decontrol alone does not constitute an adequate oil policy. It is not likely to protect the economy against temporary shortages. Nor will it significantly reduce dependence on foreign oil imports in the long term.
81.Petty nations and their petty national demands are thought to be pointless at best; divisive and self-destructive at worst.
82.The epitome of Tory sleaze was Neil Hamilton, a backbench MP who was alleged to have taken a few thousand pounds to ask some questions in parliament.
83.Another intricate problem likely to be reintroduced with the help of a subtle change of name is the problem of medium range ballistic missiles.
84.The three parties likely to take part in a coalition are the Republican People’s Party, the Justice Party, and the New Turkey Party.
85.The Minister of Economic Affairs referred today to the statement reported to have been made by the Foreign Secretary on Friday.
86.About 60 people were yesterday reported to have been arrested on subversion charges.
87.The remark, reported to have been made after the announcement of his appointment to London, was widely commented on in the press.
88.The strike, called by the region’s main political parties and labor unions, appeared to be one of the largest yet in the troubled provinces.
89.While party leaders still say they support the goals of the program, and promise that it will receive expeditious consideration on Capitol Hill, Democratic anger at many of the proposals appears to be mounting daily.
90.Turnout at the nation’s 50.000 polling stations appeared to be heavy.
91.The Bank of England appeared to back off from threats of even more interest rate increases as the slowdown in the economy intensifies.
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92.An official investigating the bribery allegations said payments made by local Olympic officials to members of the IOC appeared to have come from the privately funded budget.
93.Just a few years ago, Aum’s organization appeared to be wiped out. After the cult masterminded a nerve gas attack that killed 12 people in Tokyo’s subway, the Japanese authorities arrested 428 of its members.
94.Win or lose, the EU Commission appeared likely to emerge weakened from its battle with the Parliament over charges of graft, cronyism and mismanagement of EU’s 85 billion euro ($ 739 billion) budget.
95.Politics is a rough old trade, as Michael Howard, the former home secretary is finding out. A leading contender for the Tory leadership until this week, his campaign now appears to have been fatally damaged by the claim of one of his junior ministers at the Home Office that he misled the Commons.
96.Hydrocarbons (oil) and political volatility seem to go together.
97.Disenchantment with the President appears to be growing. The political scene has been transformed in the past two months to the point where people are openly talking of the possibility: (1) that the President will not seek re-election; and (2) that he might be beaten if he runs.
98.Europe seems to be slowing down faster than most people expected.
99.The most laudable aim of the Maastricht treaty was to knock the Union’s machinery into shape to cope with the club’s expected new members from Eastern Europe. Yet on most counts the treaty seems likely to prove disappointing.
100.A group of experts seemed to have solved a dispute about putting workers on boards that has for 25 years blocked a proposed European company statute.
101.Spanish authorities have confiscated copies of last month’s edition of “Working Youth”. No reason for the action was given, but it was be-lieved to have resulted from an article discussing sackings in a Madrid motor factory.
102.France had what was believed to be its coldest Christmas for 83 years, and in the Jura Mountains the temperature dropped to minus 28 degrees Centigrade.
103.In Zurich there was a scramble to buy marks and the Federal Bank in Bonn was believed to have bought up to 500 million dollars to prevent the mark going through its official “dollar ceiling”.
104.The meeting, which lasted just over half an hour, is understood to have taken place at the Prime Minister’s request.
105.A Tory MP threatens to name a high-ranking diplomat mentioned as a “senior civil servant” in the trial which ended last week. He is understood to have held top posts in defense and at one time served in Berlin.
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