Spreadsheet Sam runs his family's Italian restaurant. 22 years in business. Loyal customers. Solid reputation.

And absolutely no idea which marketing efforts actually work.

He posts on Facebook sometimes. Runs a Mother's Day special. Did a Groupon once (hated it). Sends out an email newsletter when he remembers.

When someone asks him "What's your best source of new customers?" he says "Word of mouth, I guess?"

"Which promotions drive the most profit?" → "The Valentine's Day thing does pretty well, I think?"

"How many customers came back in the last 60 days?" → Blank stare.

Sam makes every decision based on gut feel and memory. He's spending money on marketing, but has no idea if it's making money.

YOUR ONE STRATEGY LAB THING TODAY: 'You Can't Improve What You Don't Measure'

This is the most common problem: Operators running their business blind.

They know their food cost. They track labor percentage. But when it comes to customers and marketing? Total guesswork.

HERE'S WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW (AND MOST OPERATORS DON'T):

CUSTOMER INTELLIGENCE DASHBOARD:

- Total customers in your database (with contact info you can actually use)

- New customers this month vs. last month (growth rate)

- Repeat visit rate (what % come back within 30/60/90 days?)

- Average customer lifetime value

- Which acquisition source brings the best customers

- Which promotions drive visits vs. which drive profit (huge difference)

- Automated tagging (VIP customers, dietary restrictions, birthdays)

- Revenue per marketing channel

This isn't theory. This dashboard exists. You can build it.

WHAT BECOMES POSSIBLE WHEN YOU HAVE REAL DATA:

You discover that your "best promotion" (Sunday Pasta Night) brought in 47 new customers... who never came back. Net loss.

You learn that Instagram posts generate 3x more repeat customers than Facebook.

You realize 23% of your revenue comes from just 67 VIP customers (that you didn't even know were VIPs before).

You find out your Mother's Day promotion made $8,200, but your automated birthday campaign made $11,400 with zero effort.

You stop guessing. Start measuring. Make better decisions.

THE RESULT: Cut underperforming promotions. Double down on what actually works. Increase profit by 15-25% without increasing marketing spend.

YOUR ACTION STEP: Answer these three questions right now:

1. How many customers do you have in your database with accurate contact info?

2. What's your repeat customer rate (% who come back within 60 days)?

3. Which marketing channel brings you the most profitable customers?

If you can't answer all three, you're flying blind.

Ready to build your customer intelligence system? We walk through the entire setup inside Strategy Lab - what to track, how to track it, which tools to use, and how to actually make decisions from the data. → lab.jlittrell.com

We got this,

Jason | The Strategy Lab

P.S. Gut feel is great for recipes. Terrible for marketing decisions. Data doesn't lie.

P.P.S. This week's Strategy Lab Podcast dives deep into analytics dashboards for restaurants - what metrics actually matter and which ones are vanity numbers. Subscribe wherever you listen.

#strategylab #wegotthis