You are trading now
Something is wrong, and you have probably known it for a while.
Takings drifting down. Quiet weeks that used to be busy. Or a rating that dropped and took your trade with it. Most operators in this position have been carrying it alone for months, because there is nobody obvious to ask and the people who do ask usually want a retainer before they have even looked.
What usually turns out to be true
It is rarely the food.
In almost every business we look at, the product is fine and the owner is competent. What has gone wrong is somewhere else, and it is usually one of four things.
Nobody can find you
Your listing is incomplete, your opening hours are wrong online, or you simply do not appear when somebody nearby searches for what you sell. The customers exist. They are going somewhere else because that place came up first.
Nobody remembers you
You are found occasionally but never chosen deliberately. There is nothing recent to see, no reason to think of you on a Friday, and no reason to come back a second time.
The numbers do not work
You are busy and still not making money. The menu is priced from habit, the offers discount the hours you were already full, and the delivery platforms are taking more than you realised.
A rating is holding you down
A one or a two is published, displayed, and quietly removing you from the delivery platforms. It also makes every other problem harder to solve, which is why we deal with it first.
How it starts
A conversation, then an honest assessment.
Nothing is committed at the first stage, and nothing is charged for it.
One
A conversation
Short, private, without charge. You tell us what is happening and we tell you plainly whether it is something we can help with. If it is not, we say so and point you somewhere better.
Two
An assessment
We examine the business across visibility, growth and standards, and give you a scored written report showing what is costing you most and what to address first. It is yours to keep whatever you decide afterwards.
Three
A programme of work
A defined engagement scoped to what the assessment actually found, sequenced so that anything threatening the business is dealt with before anything else is attempted.
Four
A continuing partnership
Once it is working, we keep it working. Your visibility maintained, your records reviewed monthly, and the results measured against where you started.
Fees are set out in full at the assessment stage and confirmed in writing before any work begins. There are no charges you have not seen.
Worth saying plainly
We would rather tell you it is not worth it.
Some businesses are struggling for reasons no adviser can repair: a lease that does not work, a site with no passing trade, a market that has moved. We have no interest in taking a fee to delay that conclusion.
If that is what we find, we will say so in the first conversation rather than the third invoice.
Begin here
Tell us what is going wrong.
Fifteen minutes, no charge, no obligation. Bring the name of the business and whatever numbers you have to hand. If you have none, that is perfectly all right.
hello@cityandfields.co.uk