Your Staff Controls Your Profit Why Are You Hiding the Numbers?

Most bar owners think hiding financial numbers protects the business. 

In reality, it usually does the opposite. 

When your staff doesn’t understand what overpouring, waste, breakage, labor pressure, cash handling, and check averages are doing to the business, they can’t help protect profit. They just keep working blind.

Instead, this episode shows you how to use the right numbers to build ownership, stronger accountability, and better decisions from the people who affect your margins every single shift.

From what numbers to share, to what to keep private, to how to frame KPIs in a way your staff actually understands, you’ll learn how to get your team to care about profit without handing over your entire financial life.

If you’re a bar owner tired of carrying the business on your back while your team has no clue what things cost, this episode will show you how to create real staff buy-in and turn everyday operations into stronger profit protection.

🔴  Start Here🔴
 
📌 If this is something you’re dealing with in your bar, don’t figure it out alone.

Join Bar Business Nation — the free Facebook group for bar owners talking through staff, slow nights, profit leaks, and better ways to run the business.

📢 Join the group here:
→ https://www.facebook.com/groups/barbusinessnation

🔴Additional resources🔴
Grab the books “How to Make Top-Shelf Profits in the Bar Business!” and “Menus that Sell” here:
→ https://barbusinesscoach.com/book/ 

Transcript

Chris Schneider (00:03.736)
Do you guard your financials and then wonder why your staff doesn't act like they have a stake in the outcome? Because there's a direct line between what your staff doesn't know and where your money goes.

Chris Schneider (00:24.174)
Day on the Bar Business Podcast, we were talking about why closed book management works against you. Which numbers you need to share and how and how to gamify it so that your team pulls with you. It's amazing to me how many bar owners I talk to that say, well, I don't want to ever let my team know my numbers. I'm afraid for them to know my P &L. I don't want them to know if I'm losing or making money.

Chris Schneider (00:52.066)
That can be legit. Especially if you're losing money. It can be very painful to admit to your entire team, hey, I'm losing money. But at the same time...

People won't change. People don't know what they don't know. And they're not going to change unless they know more than they do today.

I think there's a funny thing that happens in this industry and it happens with our teams. It happens with our customers. It happens with our friends. It happens with damn near everybody. Where they go, well you own a bar. Especially if it's a busy bar. go, you own a bar, you must be rich. All bar owners are rich.

I think everybody listening this podcast knows that's well, that just ain't true. Like that's pretty far from the truth. Most bar owners are not rich.

Chris Schneider (01:48.879)
You know, if you're in business to get rich, the bar business is not the one to be in. If you're in business to make a solid middle class living, have a good time, take care of people, enjoy life. The bar business is fantastic.

This isn't a place where you're to get rich.

Now, I will say there are some people on the edges. You can scale, you can grow, there are ways to get there. But general, the bar business does not make people rich.

And what happens more often than not with our books is we close those. We don't show our team any numbers. And then they make that assumption that we're rich. They make that assumption that we're pouring money into our pockets. They make that assumption that everything is great.

Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But they don't know what they don't know.

Chris Schneider (02:45.622)
And quite frankly, the difference between a team that is wasteful and a team that isn't can often be sharing cost numbers. So we're going to talk through some key points today about how to share, what to share.

how to get past the fear of sharing numbers with your team.

and really dive into what can we do to make sure our team understands where we are as a business so that their interests are aligned with ours? How can we turn them from a liability into an asset when it comes to our financial management?

So the first thing I want to get into today is what does it really cost to keep your team in the dark?

Chris Schneider (03:43.596)
And the thing you have to realize, the thing you have to come to grips with is your team really controls your P &O way more than you do.

They're the ones that are pouring drinks. They're controlling your cost of goods sold. They're the ones collecting your cash. So if you're over on cash, if you're short on cash, that's coming from your team. They're the ones making sure all the checks get paid. Making sure credit cards get pre-auths.

They're the ones using the disposables, the bar towels, all those things that are small but add up to a lot of money on your P &L at the end of the month.

And the bottom line is, if they don't see these things.

They're gonna assume that you're making money, that there are no problems.

Chris Schneider (04:37.528)
And there are two fears I hear from bar owners when I say, maybe we should share this. The first one is, well, I'm making money. They're going to ask for more money. Maybe.

Chris Schneider (04:53.464)
Probably not.

Chris Schneider (04:57.694)
I I know when I shared what I was making with a couple of my waitresses and bartenders, couple years in known in my bar, the first one. They, they looked at me that way. That's it? yeah, I made more than that last year.

Tips are a lot of money, folks.

But the bottom line here is even if you're doing well, maybe they ask for more money, but maybe then you need a reason to say, hey, here's what that money is being used for. Here's where we're reinvesting.

Chris Schneider (05:33.326)
or to leverage. You see this cost here in glassware? This is 25 % higher than it was last year because we keep breaking glasses. If we keep breaking glasses, I don't have money to give you a raise. Now you've aligned your goals.

So when your team understands your margins, those entitlement conversations actually get quieter. They get easier.

Chris Schneider (06:03.276)
And the real thing here, the other fear that we need to talk about, actually, before we get into the real thing, the other fear.

that I hear from a lot of people is not they'll ask me for more money, but they're on the other side. saying they're going to realize I'm failing.

Chris Schneider (06:22.126)
Well, they still have a job. They still have a paycheck. As long as your financials aren't so bad that they're looking at it going, oh my God, you're going to close tomorrow, you're not going see it as failing. And you don't have to share the bottom line. We'll get into what to share and what to keep private here in a second. But don't have to share the bottom line. So if you're not sharing the bottom line, maybe the numbers show, hey, I'm not doing great. They don't show that you're failing. And when they see that you're struggling,

Chances are if they like you, if they're a good team, if you take good care of them, they're going to want to pitch in and help out more. They're going to want to help you be more successful.

To get a bar where you have 10 % turnover, you need to create an ownership mentality. And transparency is how you do that. When your team understands the numbers, they will help you, assuming they're not assholes. They will help you. So the fears here, I think, are far outweighed by the benefits.

But before we get into the benefits, let's talk a little bit about what to share and how to share. So when it comes to what to share, I like to share everything to controllable cost. So, and honestly, when I had a bar, sometimes I shared my whole P &L. Like my P &L was available to anybody who wanted to see it. I didn't really care. I'm weird though. They saw a top line, they saw a bottom line, they saw everything in between. But I am weird.

So for most people, if you want to share the whole thing, share the whole thing. I've said before on this podcast, I put it on a cork board. That is one of my go-tos. But if we're going to be a little bit more controlled about what we share, here's what we should share. Everything up to our controlled expenses and through our controlled expenses. So what does that mean? Revenue numbers, cost of goods sold numbers, labor numbers.

Chris Schneider (08:26.203)
and your controllable expenses. So things like

programming, trivia, live music, paper goods potentially.

Chris Schneider (08:41.812)
All those expenses that, you know, because your manager has control of your controllable expenses more or less, or you do as the owner, those are things that you can move. Your team needs to be aware of that because they can move those as well.

Also, if you don't want to share the actual sections of the P &L, the other thing that you could share is poor cost percentages, labor cost percentages, check averages, sales versus targets, upsell rates like KPI data. But preferably you share both. What would I keep private? Well, unless you want to be crazy like me, net profits, owner draws, debt service, basically your entire balance sheet. Even I kept the balance sheet private. But

anything in your non controllable expenses or your other income and expense. No reason for them to see that. Unless you just want to be super transparent like me because you're weird.

Chris Schneider (09:38.348)
And when you give them percentages and KPIs, always make sure you frame it in dollars. know, things like four points of poor cost is a thousand bucks a week.

Chris Schneider (09:53.059)
You're overpouring by $1,000 a week. You all want raises, but I can't give you a raise when you're wasting $1,000 a week.

it really easy to make these arguments if they have transparency on your numbers. So now how do we share without making it weird besides some of the examples I just gave and whatnot. One is pre-shift meeting. 60 seconds verbal. You just say hey here were last night's numbers, here were our target, here's what that means for tonight. You can do it verbally.

If you're going to do it verbally, always attach a specific action. Numbers without action just create anxiety. So say these were our numbers and this is what we're going to do about it.

You can rotate that metric so they always are thinking about something a little bit different. Now, I don't like to do that too often because you need to get them. If you're going to focus on a metric in your pre shift meetings, you need to get them to a point where that metric can improve. And that's going to take two, three, four weeks to improve that metric. So if you're going to do this pre shift meeting way, pick a KPI, pick a metric every month, hammer it, get it better that month. Acknowledge them when they hit it.

Celebrate the wins as you get closer to it. Allow them to give you ideas on how to reach that metric or that KPI.

Chris Schneider (11:14.894)
So that's one way to do it. Another way you can share without making it weird is just post things. I mean, that's maybe a little bit weird, but I don't think it is. Especially if you're trying to hit metrics and KPIs, you can put those on a board.

Like I said before, I posted my whole PNL on the corkboard outside my office. And you can put in sections or not put in sections, right? But you can just literally chop your PNL off after controllable expense, pin it to a corkboard. There, it's shared. Now you also need to talk about it. Because if you're not talking about it, probably nobody's really going to give a shit about that PNL that you put on the corkboard.

but have those conversations, show them the data, let them see the data, focus on a few pieces of the data you want to move, and then follow up. Stay focused on those few pieces of data so they get better.

Now, if we really want to gamify this.

Chris Schneider (12:24.034)
Post a monthly target for your team.

Do it publicly, right? Where everybody can see it. Just the numbers versus the goals. We don't necessarily want to include names here, but just numbers versus goals.

Chris Schneider (12:49.526)
You can have a whole team goal of, as a team, we are going to increase our guest check average $2 this month. Here's how we're going to do it. I want your ideas on how we can do it.

But let's get that whole number up. And then within that gamification of that team, say, guest check average increase by $2 this month, we're to see which individual can have the highest guest check average. Because that guy, that woman, whoever it is that has your highest GCA probably has for a long time. We're going to see who can improve their guest check average the most in the next month. Who can get the biggest increase?

Chris Schneider (13:31.394)
So we can have an individual scoreboard, we can have a team scoreboard. But we want to gamify this. We want to make this fun, we want to make this engaging. We want to get them moving. We want to encourage them through showing good data.

Now, one thing that is very true here, if you announce something like this and you don't follow through,

Chris Schneider (13:55.791)
A, nobody's going to care next time you try to do this. B, you've essentially told them these numbers don't matter.

That's not the goal here. The goal here is to get your team to understand that numbers do matter. Not that they don't.

Chris Schneider (14:13.646)
So if you want the numbers to matter, if you're going to gamify this, if you're going to set goals, follow through.

If you're going to have a month long push towards a KPI or towards a specific target, talk about it every day. If you're going to show them your P &L, when it gets done every month, talk about it. Say, hey guys, here's how we did last month. This is where I noticed we're running into some problems. This is where we're doing really well. Paper goods cost is up. Liquor cost is up. Beer cost is down.

Talk about the numbers, otherwise you're saying you're doing it halfway. That means it matters maybe 50%.

You're gonna do this, you have to follow through. You have to make it matter.

Chris Schneider (15:06.924)
Now what does this do overall to your culture? It's you saying here's what a winning night looks like.

And that's a much different thing to say to your team than do your job.

Chris Schneider (15:21.962)
It's holding them accountable, but it's also giving them the tools to hold themselves accountable. It's making it so you don't seem like a hypocrite who says, I need you to do this because I said so. Into a person said, look, here's the numbers. Here's what this means. We need to do this.

Chris Schneider (15:43.48)
So.

share your numbers with your team and use it to your advantage.

Chris Schneider (15:52.566)
And one thing to always keep in mind, right, we can talk industry benchmarks a lot.

But your food costs, your beverage costs, your labor costs, your paper goods costs, your office expenses costs, are all specific to you.

Chris Schneider (16:14.058)
Industry standards are great. And of course, we want to optimize everything to increase bottom line when we're talking financial management.

But rather than worry about my team is running a 52 % liquor cost, industry average is 20%, this is terrible. Well, it is. I wouldn't tell them that. Look, we're the one in 52%. Here's the math. This does not make money at 52%. I need to get this as close to 20 as we can. Let's go. Don't hold them to that 20. Don't hold them to the benchmark. Don't worry about the benchmarks. Worry about getting your team aligned.

with making your bar a little bit better every day.

so they can celebrate the wins and you can sleep better at night.