bwenyenye wrote:Despite its profitability, I cannot bear the curses of the children asking why daddy doesn't come home.... Hell no!! Wacha hiy pesa ikae!
You don't have to be there 24/7. There are people who run a chain of bars successfully. Just have in place the right checks and balances. And make sure you have a manager - just pick the most level headed waiter/cashier and make him/her the manager. Let them deal with all the stress. Your work will only be to provide policy guidelines and manage the manager. Once you know all the loopholes, you will reduce losses caused by thieving employees to a bear minimum.
Rule of thumb: Instruct the manager to take stock every morning and record all new stock
immediately it is received. And do
random stock taking. It ought to keep him on toes. These is where most of the money is lost. The manager for example buys 30 crates of beer and 20 are sold. But in his records, he indicates that 25 crates were bought and 15 were sold. He essentially keeps the profit on the 5 crates [The money he had used to buy them will be returned to the 'float']. It is called "kuiba na kalamu". At 20/= profit per bottle [could be far much higher], the dude pockets a cool 2,500/= - no expenses. With random stock taking, show up any time of the day or night, immediately ask for the records and verify them physically. Any anomalies and you are being taken for a ride! The fact that you do random stock taking will instill fear in the fellow!
Never count on making a good sale. Have the purchase price be so attractive that even a mediocre sale gives good returns.