Why Restaurant Marketing is So Important for Your Business

Many restaurateurs spend most of their time running the daily operations: inventory control and ordering, making sure that the place is clean, that the employees turns are in order, that the broken dishwasher gets fixed, etc.

There are a million tasks that form part of the daily routine of running a restaurant business. All are important and all of them need to be taken care of.

However, there is usually one task that most of the restaurateurs are happy to delegate: their restaurant marketing.

Most restaurateurs are not very business savvy people. They open their restaurants because they love to cook and to mingle with their customers. They naïvely think that offering good food at reasonable prices is enough to attract customers to fill their tables…

The reality check is often brutal and leaves restaurant owners scratching their heads in disbelief, wondering why their place is mostly empty while other nearby restaurants seem to be always full.

The problem is that the world is full of good restaurants. Competition in the restaurant business is brutal and, if you own a restaurant you should know that is not enough to offer good food. You also must compete with many other restaurants that are often wiser than you investing their marketing dollars.

So, if marketing is so important, why is that restaurateurs are more than happy to give their marketing budget away to sales reps?

You know whom I mean. These are the sales people who flock to restaurants always offering a good deal, although “You must act now because the next issue is going to print and you are going to miss it!”

You know what? Miss it! It is probably a waste of money anyway.

I’ve just started coaching a restaurant. When I sat with the owner and we did an inventory of all his marketing expenses, his eyes almost popped out of the sockets.

He is spending more than $3,000 USD a month in mostly useless marketing. And the best part is that, until now, he never did an analysis of the return of investment that his marketing expenses are bringing him.

You don’t need to be a marketing genius to expend your marketing budget wisely, just follow one simple rule. Just one. If you follow this rule and do nothing else, I guarantee you that your marketing will improve dramatically.

Ok are you ready?

The rule is: Never invest in any marketing that you can’t track and measure the results.

That’s it: Very simple, very straightforward and very logical.

If a sales rep comes to your place and ask you to place an ad in his newspaper, or directory or whatever he is selling you, just ask them: How can you guarantee me that if I spend $1,000 with you, you will give me at least $1,500 in business?

If all they offer you is their word that their ads work, just ask him to guarantee it in writing. If their marketing is really effective, they shouldn’t be afraid to back it up with a solid guarantee. However, I can assure you, they won’t do it. And you know why? Because they can’t.

Most of the traditional restaurant marketing only benefits the advertising companies that produce it.

If they can guarantee you the results, go for it, you have nothing to lose and much to win. If not, think about other ways where you can track and measure your results.

It sounds simple but it requires that you have a marketing plan and stick to it.

Good luck!

Jose L Riesco
© Riesco Consulting Inc.
www.twitter.com/jlriesco
http://www.myrestaurantmarketing.com

Interactive Restaurant Marketing

I've just finished watching a 15 minutes video presented by Noah N. Glass, Founder and CEO of GoMobo about Interactive Restaurant Marketing.

The key takeaway is that 2/3 of the top restaurant marketers in attendance are spending less than 10% of their advertising budget online in a time when customers consume 41% of their media online.

Closing this gap is the key to thriving in a challenging economic climate by increasing marketing targeting and tracking. You wan to advertise and market where your clients are.

This marketing won't work as effectively for everybody:

It works specially well for restaurants that sell food to go or to pickup.

So what about if you have a sit-down restaurant? You can still benefit from many of the online marketing techniques such as sending electronic gift certificates to celebrate your best client's birthdays (or anniversaries) or announce special promotions or events.

Your website should be the forefront of your marketing efforts. You need to capture your customers information (email, phone number) and then act upon it to reach your customers and invite them to take action:

If you have delivery service or food to-go, you can just add an online ordering form to your site so that you make easy for your clients to order food directly from your restaurant.
If you don't have delivery or food to-go you still can use your site to email your best clients gift certificates or award programs as well as targeted deals, restaurant news, etc. (Of course you can do this as well for the food to go or delivery service).

In any case, a totally worthwhile 15 minutes of your time. You can watch the video here: Watch GoMobo's 15-Minute Video on Interactive Restaurant Marketing

Enjoy the Holidays!

Jose L Riesco
© Riesco Consulting Inc.
www.twitter.com/jlriesco
http://www.myrestaurantmarketing.com

How Restaurants Should Respond to Customers Asking for Money for Charities

One question that often remains unanswered is what to do with all these people coming to your restaurant and asking for donations (gift certificates).

It seems like lots of people all the sudden think that it is a great idea to go to their favorite restaurant and ask the owners for gift certificates to donate to their children's schools, their churches or their preferred charities.

Of course, they don't realize that hundreds of customers and organizations have the same idea and ask for the same gifts. And perhaps they think that this sinking economy is not impacting your business.

And what can you do, poor restaurateur, but suffer the unpleasant experience of having to say NO to these, often pleasant and good people?

Don't despair. I have a couple of ideas for you to use next time that you get the happy solicitor asking you for a donation:

• If the solicitors are organizations with many people: school, hospital, church, charity, etc. Offer to give them many small gift certificates that don't cover your average price per customer. For example, if your average ticket is $25 per person, offer gift certificates for a value of $10. Also make sure that you clearly print on them that they can't be combined. You want to take advantage of this opportunity to give away coupons masked as gift certificates for a value less than your average check so that the customers coming will spend more money in your place.
• If the solicitors are individual customers. Offer to sell them the gift certificates at a discount. You can apply the same principle than before. You can sell them several $10 gift certificates for a value of $5 each. They can buy as many as they want but they have to give them or raffle them to many people (and not bundling them together) so that many people get to come and try your place. Tell them that you are contributing your share by giving them the discounts, but they also have to contribute theirs by paying for the difference. After all it's their idea and it should be their donation, not yours.

If you apply both techniques you will:

• Be happier because you won't have to say NO to a good cause
• Leverage your marketing by distributing gift certificates that will bring additional customers (who could be potential clients) to your place at a minimum cost

It is a win-win proposition.

Happy Sailing,

Jose L Riesco
© Riesco Consulting Inc.
www.twitter.com/jlriesco
http://www.myrestaurantmarketing.com

Bracing for a recession

These are tough times for everybody but perhaps restaurateurs are feeling the impact more than most other business since people are cutting down the eating out budget.

I read somewhere that the restaurants suffering the most are the middle priced ones. People who used to pay $20 to $30 for a meal are going now to fast food places to eat cheaper. Fancy restaurant clientele are not being affected that much by the crisis so they can still afford to go out to their favorite upscale restaurant and pay the fare.

So what can you do, if you have a small mid-priced restaurant to survive these down times?

Here are some suggestions for you:

• Look at your marketing budget and cut any expenses that you can't measure. This doesn't mean to cut down in marketing. Cutting down in marketing in slow times is a terrible idea, although for many restaurateurs is the first thing to do to save money. What you have to do is to make sure that your marketing dollars are working hard. If you don't know if a marketing campaign is working for you, then assume that it is not. For example, don't spend money advertising in newspapers, magazines, radio or Yellow Pages if you can't count how many customers these ads bring to your place. You need to make sure that you are making more revenue from the ads than you are spending in the advertising. This looks like an obvious thing but I can guarantee you that many restaurateurs never question or analyze their advertising expenses.
• Reduce your portions if you give lots of food in your dishes. Not only you'll be doing a favor to your customers (they really don't need to overeat these huge portions) but you will save in food costs. Reduce quantity and improve quality. Everybody will benefit.
• Look at your menu and see if you have dishes that give you very small profits (either because of the high cost of their ingredients or because they are very labor intensive and difficult to prepare). If so, replace them by dishes easier to make or that require less or more inexpensive ingredients. Again, you will save in food costs increasing this way your profit per sale.
• Keep an eye on your labor expenses. If you see that some days of the week are slower, reduce your employees these days. If you reduce your labor expenses, you will cope better with slow times since you won't spend in food if they don't eat.
• Spend extra time and energy pleasing your clients. They are your most important asset, more than your food or your chef or anybody else. If you don't have clients, nothing else matters. Period. Make them very welcome to your place, bend backwards to please them and try to always exceed their expectations. This is the best way to assure that they will come back.
• If you haven't done so, start a formalized referral system to bring back your best clients. Please read my previous blog to get more information about this point.
• Replace costly snail mail by communications via your website and email. This cost you nothing and will allow you to keep in touch with your clients more often.

These are just some ideas for you to implement. In these time of crisis, ingenuity and excellence go a long way to make sure that you'll be there when the economy recovers and hungry customers are looking for the best places to eat. Your restaurant should be always on top of their minds and their harts.

Good luck!

Jose L Riesco
© Riesco Consulting Inc.
www.twitter.com/jlriesco
http://www.myrestaurantmarketing.com

Using Online Social Networking to Attract New Customers to Your Restaurant

Brenda Segna writes in her blog http://segnamarketing.blogspot.com/2008/11/myspace-for-seo-and-web-marketing.html about using MySpace to attract young customers to a Pizza place.

Some restaurant owners (check out these ones: http://www.myspace.com/tarantinopizza and http://www.myspace.com/mamacitascafe as an example) created a MySpace site to promote their businesses.

MySpace is a social networking website offering an interactive, user-submitted network of friends, personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music and videos for teenagers and adults. It is a very music oriented social networking site so teens and young adults constitute the majority of its 120 million members (yes, you read this right One Hundred Million Members!).

As you can imagine, if you have a restaurant targeted to the younger crowd (pizzerias a prototypical example), your message can find them easier if you advertise in the places where they "hang out". In this case is a virtual hang-out but as valid as the physical world one for marketing purposes.

Creating a MySpace page is free and relatively easy (although the two examples that I gave you have been designed by professionals) so you may want to consider it. There is also the ability to add background music, blogs, etc.

Check out www.myspace.com and give it a try. You never know if it will bring you lots of new customers.

Happy Networking,

Jose L Riesco
© Riesco Consulting Inc.
www.twitter.com/jlriesco
http://www.myrestaurantmarketing.com

Bite2Eat

I't come to my attention a new Web site called www.Bite2Eat.com

It's a site where people can order (take out or deliver) food. Although there are several sites that follow this model, Bite2Eat is trying to differentiate themselves from the others by adding a community  spin to the on-line ordering business. They call it "Buddy Order" and they have a video explaining how it works. In my humble opinion, the video is not very clear and I told them so in an email that I sent them with some feedback.

Since they are just getting started with this effort, there is room for improvement in their site to better explain how their offering is better than their competitors. However, they are very open to get feedback and improve upon it, so if you would like to tell them your ideas for improvement, and how can they serve you better, you can do it here: http://bite2eat.com/form_pages/contact_us

As a restaurateur, you can register to participate free of charge. You will only pay a commission of 10% for each sale that you make through their service. This is a good business model for both parties since you will only pay if you sell your food, and they only make money if you have sales so they are very motivated to work with you and promote your business if they want to be profitable.

Go ahead, connect with their site and register, you don't have much to lose (nothing actually) and perhaps you will start getting lots of additional customers ordering food to go.

Jose L Riesco
© Riesco Consulting Inc.
www.twitter.com/jlriesco
http://www.myrestaurantmarketing.com

Restaurant Join Ventures

I was reading today the Wall Street Journal online when I read the news that in a new promotion with TiVo Inc., Domino's Pizza Inc. will begin taking orders using only a TV set from customers who have broadband TiVo service. For the ones of you who don't know what TiVo is, you can find more information here: (http://www.tivo.com/whatistivo/tivois/index.html)

This is how it works: When a customer forwards through a commercial for Domino's, TiVo will flash a pop-up advertisement that asks the customer if she would like to order a pizza, then direct her to a Domino's ordering screen.

I think that the idea is brilliant. Think about it. Who is the ideal candidate to order pizza? Probably somebody who is hungry and watching TV. Domino's can target their ads to a hungry multitude eager to get their products and able to buy on the spot!

Both companies will benefit from this deal. TiVo will increase its revenue by allowing their technology to display a Domino's link to their ordering screen. Domino's will capture thousands of new customers that otherwise will remain inactive or order some food from some competitors.

This is the power of Join Venture. All parties benefit.

Now think about your restaurant: Is there any company that you could make a deal with to promote your business?

Do you have a local business or company whose employees go to your restaurant for lunch on a regular basis? If so perhaps you can make an agreement with the owners or managers and provide them with customized lunches (pre-packaged and easy to eat) that their employees can order (online or on the phone) and your restaurant will deliver to their premises. Explain to the managers that, in this way, their employees don't need to spend time and go out for eating. They may save time and the employees may appreciate the convenience.

You can also think about other creative solutions such as doing business with:

• Local jewelry stores: you can sell them gift certificates for a discounted price so that they can pass them along to their customers
• Car dealers, beauty saloons, hair saloons, spas... : same concept
• Other restaurants: yes, you can cross-promote other restaurants with a totally different kind of food. People like variety and will try different foods. For example, if you own an Italian restaurant, you can cross-promote a sushi place or an indian restaurant... And they can do the same with you. It is a win/win proposition. I hope that you get the idea.
• etc.

The possibilities are unlimited. Just think about a partner that can bring customers to your restaurant and try to make an attractive offer that benefit both of you.

Jose L Riesco
© Riesco Consulting Inc.
www.twitter.com/jlriesco
http://www.myrestaurantmarketing.com

Hungry

Seth Godin has a really good blog call Hungry. You can check it here: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/11/hungry.html

If you don't know Seth, he is the bestselling author of more than seven books. He writes about marketing, the spread of ideas and managing both customers and employees with respect. (This bio is taken from his Squidoo page). I really recommend you to subscribe to his blog since he usually posts really insightful and interesting information.

The point that he makes in his blog Hungry, is that people are not really hungry most of the time. They just want to experience the satisfying feeling of fullness or the satisfaction that people associate with eating good food.

If we extrapolate this idea to the restaurant business, your restaurant provides (or should provide) your clients, not only with food to fuel their bodies, but with an emotional experience to satisfy all their senses (yes, with emphasis on the senses of taste and smell, but without forgetting the rest).

This is why it is so important to appeal to your clients' five senses all at once:

• Sight: With beautiful and tasty decor and ambience. Put some art if you can afford it, and above all, have your place spotless clean.
• Hearing: Have some good background or live music to make their dinning experience even better.
• Taste: The key one for obvious reasons. If your food is not good, the rest doesn't matter really.
• Smell: Closely related to taste and specially appealing if you are selling good wines or other aromatic foods and drinks.
• Touch: This one is interesting. The quality of your silverware, your plates, your glasses, your tablecloths (if you have them), napkins, etc. they all contribute to the overall experience.

Most of the restaurants provide satisfactory experiences to at least two or more of the senses, but not many restaurants are able to provide with the whole experience to all senses simultaneously. Some of the best restaurants in the world are considered best not only for their exquisite food or drinks but because they appeal and massage all senses at the same time.

Only when you can pamper all 5 senses at once, you will move from the category of good restaurant to the category of excellent restaurant. You will provide your clients with an "incredible dinning experience", a experience that they will remember and tell all their friends and relatives giving you the best advertising that you can get anywhere.

Give it a try. Look at your place and make a list of things that you can improve to appeal all the senses. You don't need to spend a fortune, just be thoughtful and think how can you improve the sensorial experience of your clients. You both will be happier. I guarantee you.

Jose L Riesco
© Riesco Consulting Inc.
www.twitter.com/jlriesco
http://www.myrestaurantmarketing.com

Using Twitter to Promote Your Restaurant

I am so busy building my consulting business and finishing editing the last chapter of my Restaurant Marketing Strategies book (almost done, two more weeks and I will have it ready!) that I didn't even have time to blog lately.

However, today I was reading today an interesting blog from 9 Giant Steps called "A restaurant is actually doing The Straddle: (http://www.9giantsteps.com/?p=1000) and this blog got me motivated to write a short comment.

Twitter (for the ones of you who are not familiar with all the Social Media happening lately) is a service for friends, family, and coworkers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent messages answering the question: What are you doing? You can find more information about this service in their home site: www.twitter.com

George Howard, the blogger in www.9giantsteps.com was wondering if any restaurateur was tweeting out their specials to spread the word to potential customers using this social media.

Well, the world is big and there are many restaurateurs trying to actively promote their business so he got some answers from a couple of places that use Twitter as a means to advertise their specials.

This is a great idea for a bar or a place with lots of activity and things happening. Many people use Twitter from their mobile phones or notebooks connected via WiFi so a well placed information about your specials could entice somebody to visit your place.

Location and timeliness could be the factors that make somebody react and go to your restaurant instead of your competitors.

The nice thing about Twitter is that the messages have to be short by definition. Twitter doesn't allow you to write anything that has more than 140 characters so you need to be concise in your messages.

Go ahead, give it a try and be creative. You never know how many people will respond to your messages.

By the way, my Twitter name is @jlriesco so feel free to follow me, send me some messages with feedback or just to let me know that you read my blogs.

Happy Tweeting!

Jose L Riesco
© Riesco Consulting Inc.
www.twitter.com/jlriesco
http://www.myrestaurantmarketing.com

How the Crisis is Affecting the Restaurant Industry

A good friend of mine who owns an upper scale small family restaurant called me in panic. The business is slow, in fact it is so slow that she was afraid that she will have to lay off people because her cash reserves were getting depleted.

It is true that with this uncertain economy, with the stock market collapsing, the sub-prime mortgage down the tubes and the credit taughter than titanium, sometimes it seems like the end of the world.

So what can a restaurateur do to keep the business going?

The best course of action is to focus on the bases. Yes, the economy is not good, yes people go out less and eat less in restaurants because they have less money (specially if they invested in real state or the stock market) or they are just afraid that the economy will collapse and want to save some money... but you know what? This is more an emotional reaction than a real depression with lots of jobs being lost.

Most the people are still keeping their jobs and there is always enough people who go out to eat to fill in your restaurant IF (and this IF is really important in these taught times) provides them with something better than your competitors.

In easy times it easy to make money by just about anybody with a business. People are happier to spend their money when the economy is vibrant and there is plenty to spend and they are less picky where they spend it.

However, turn the economy around, just like now, and people start watching really careful where they spend their hard earned dollars. If they decide to go out for dinner, they better hand pick a restaurant that it will guarantee them a great dinning experience.

This is where your restaurant should shine and set apart from your competitors. Focus on your clients with a laser sharp intensity. Make their dinning dollars count by giving them the best food, best drinks and best service that you are able to provide at your place and they will be grateful to you and come again looking to repeat that great experience.

Also, don't skimp in your marketing. this is a mistake that many restaurateurs do. In times of crisis, they start cutting down their marketing and sales effort and this brings less clients and less revenue.

Try no to panic and run your business the best you can. This is the only way you can weather these stormy times. Hang in there and wait for the economy to recover and people to come back to eat at your place.

Good luck!

Jose L Riesco
© Riesco Consulting Inc.
www.twitter.com/jlriesco
http://www.myrestaurantmarketing.com

Marketing Your Restaurant in a Slow Economy

It looks like you can't turn on the radio or TV these days without hearing about the crisis of the economy and recession in the country.

If you just listen to these (bad) news, it looks like the sky will fall on top of our heads any minute now. Restaurant business is a economy driven business and perhaps eating out is the first thing in the chopping list when people don't have enough disposable income.

However, the good news is that there is always enough people to fill in your place if you don't get scared and make the following 4 main mistakes:

• 1. Reducing Your Marketing and Sales

⁃ This looks like a no brainer. If the business is slow, you need to beef-up your marketing, not cut it down.
⁃ However most restaurateurs make the mistake of reducing costs by reducing their marketing investments. Please notice that I am not proposing to spend more money in marketing. There are many ways to increase your marketing presence while decreasing your marketing costs.
⁃ If you haven't done so yet, setup a formalized referral system. This is the best and cheapest way to get and maintain quality clients.
⁃ You can find more information about referral systems in my audio interview. Download here: http://myrestaurantmarketing.com/Products/Audio/Audio.html

2. Cutting Corners in Quality to Save Money

⁃ You may feel tempted to cut down in the quality of your ingredients to save some money but, believe me, your clients will notice that the quality of your dishes is going down and then they will take their money to some of your competitors.

⁃ Because it is a slow economy, this also means that your clients will be more selective in their restaurant picks. Don't lower your quality to save a few bucks. Your clients will resent it and so will you when they don't show up anymore in your place.

3. Reducing Your Work Force

⁃ It is OK to adapt your work force to the needs of your restaurant, but don't make the mistake to have so few people in your staff that your service will suffer. Great food and service are the cornerstones of any restaurant and you can't afford to cut any of them.

4. Caring More About Saving Money Than Taking Care of Your Clients

⁃ Never forget what your restaurant is all about. It is all about your clients. Without clients, there is no business. Without business, there is no restaurant. Don't ever forget that.

Your clients are the lifeblood of your restaurant and in tough times is specially important that you make them feel like royalty. If they are going to spend their hard earned money in your place, you better give them a great reason to do so. After a great dinning experience, they will be more likely to go back to your place than to give their money to your competitors.

This is it, if you can avoid these mistakes, you will be better off than many of your competitors. Don't forget that there are enough clients to fill your restaurant. Only the restaurateurs that forget the basics and try to save money in the wrong places, will suffer the down turn of this always variable economy.

Happy Sailing,

Jose L Riesco
© Riesco Consulting Inc.
www.twitter.com/jlriesco
http://www.myrestaurantmarketing.com

Restaurant Blogging Strategies

I'm evaluating a multi-media course on blogging from the folks at Simpleology. For a while, they're letting you snag it for free if you post about it on your blog.
It covers:

• The best blogging techniques.
• How to get traffic to your blog.
• How to turn your blog into money.

I'll let you know what I think once I've had a chance to check it out. Meanwhile, go grab yours while it's still free.
Happy blogging,
Jose L Riesco
© Riesco Consulting Inc.
www.twitter.com/jlriesco
http://www.myrestaurantmarketing.com

The Restaurant List Co.

I've just read a short article in the Orlando Business Journal (Yes, this is the beauty of the Internet, you can read about local news globally!) about two entrepreneurs that came up with an idea to create customized lists for hotels that cite restaurants by category with brief descriptions, addresses, phone numbers and maps, all updated on a monthly basis.

The Restaurant List Co. started in Nashville, Tennessee about a year ago and wants to include more than 100,000 restaurants and 12,000 hotels.

Their business model is to offer the list to hotels for free and make money in the back end from the restaurants that pay between $10 to $300 per month to be included.

So you think this a good idea? Should you advertise in this list if you city happens to be already included in their database?

My short answer is No, I don't think so. I will explain why I think that this is a waste of money (your money) and why this is an almost obsolete idea in these Internet times:

• The list will be distributed in hotels. This means that it will capture ONLY people who are traveling and therefore may go to your restaurant once in a blue moon. And this is assuming that they go to your place; remember, there will be hundreds of restaurant listed there! Now, if you are familiar with my restaurant marketing strategies, you know that I recommend cultivating your best existing clients and promoting for them to come more often and bring their friends and family versus expending lots of money trying to attract new customers. This initiative focuses exclusively in this expensive strategy.

• People who frequent hotels, (at least that your restaurant is located in a turistic area) are usually business travelers. These are technical savvy people who will use the Internet to find good places to eat. With the proliferation of free user-rated sites such as www.citysearch.com, www.yelp.com, and other more prestigious sites such as www.zagat.com, www.restaurant.com, etc. who needs a printed list to chose a restaurant?

• Since this list is on a per-pay model, any restaurant will be included, mixing high quality expensive restaurants with fast food places and making the clients confused about their choices.

• Finally, if you really want to attract people who stay in hotels near your place, the best way to do it is to "bribe" the concierges. Offer them a complimentary meal once in a while and they will refer lots of people to your place for much less money than the monthly fee that you'll have to pay to be included in this list

So there, this is my opinion of the whole idea. If you think that this would work for you, then at least try to track how many people will come to your place because of the list. Make the ad in the list so that the clients coming give you a code or something on exchange for some freebie. This is the only way to track the success of this marketing investment.

Remember, never invest in marketing if you can't track its results! If you do nothing else and follow this golden rule, you will be way ahead of your competitors and invest wisely your marketing dollars.

Happy Sailing,

Jose L Riesco
© Riesco Consulting Inc.
www.twitter.com/jlriesco
http://www.myrestaurantmarketing.com

Restaurant Marketing Plan

Do restaurant owners and managers need a Restaurant Marketing Plan?

The answer is, ABSOLUTELY. Without a marketing plan you are just investing money blindly hoping for the best and trying to get lucky.

Would you build a house without first having a blueprint? Probably not a good idea since you could end up spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to get, at best, a questionable house.

However, many restaurateurs spend thousands of dollars in marketing (placing ads in weekly papers and magazines, printing and mailing coupons, accepting programs like Passport, etc.) without having, or even ever considering a marketing plan.

A restaurant marketing plan is a blueprint of your marketing strategy. It tells you where and how to spend your marketing dollars so that you can maximize your investment and get the results that you want. In other words, it is your plan for a successful restaurant.

Restaurateurs are busy people. There are so many things that they need to take care of on a daily bases (inventory, appliances, staff, schedules, finances, cleaning, maintaining, etc.) that they can always find excuses for no sitting down and do some upfront planning that it could save them thousands of dollars in marketing investments and additional thousands in increased revenues and sales.

If you don't have a restaurant marketing plan, you will be pray of the persistent sales people who will come to your restaurant (because they will come, count on it) trying to persuade you to place ads in their yellow pages, their billboards, their newspapers (that, they will tell you reaches thousands of readers, like if this was any measure of your success advertising there!), etc.

Think for a moment how do you want to position your restaurant. Do you have something obviously special that you offer to your clients? (this is called a Unique Selling Proposition or USP). If so, you should use this USP in your advertising, if not, you should come up with one.

All restaurants are different from each other and all have something unique about them that their regulars clients like. If you don't now what's special about your place, ask your regular clients. Approach them after a good meal and ask them what's that they like about your place that they come again and again. Is it your great food? or your excellent service? Is it perhaps your location or your ambience? There are many variables and your job, as owner/manager is to identify what makes your place special and different from other places.

Once you have your USP, use it in all your marketing materials.

Then think about your clients. What's your average client? If you are a medium/upper scale restaurant, they are probably professionals or retired people with money, perhaps couples with no kids, etc. If you are a family restaurant, your clients are families with kids, etc.

This is very important when you create your marketing campaigns. For example, why should you advertise in a weekly newspaper mainly aimed to youth if most of your customers are middle age couples with higher income? You would be wasting your marketing dollars. Or the opposite: If you have a family restaurant, should you send coupons in an area where most of the population are retired senior people? I don't think that this is a great idea.

You see where I am going? Before you spend ANY dollars in your marketing, try to think about your place:what's unique with it?, and about your clients: what kind of clients do you have and what kind of clients do you want? this will set up the tone and channels for all your marketing.

Think always strategically. Know what your plan is and where do you want to take your business before you spend your hard earned dollars in marketing that doesn't work for you.

Jose L Riesco
© Riesco Consulting Inc.
www.twitter.com/jlriesco
http://www.myrestaurantmarketing.com

Exceeding Expectations

How many times do you get one of these surveys, specially after buying a new car (see my previous blog titled Surveys and Car Dealers where they expect you to fill them always with the top score? (Meaning that they’ve exceeded all your expectations).

If we followed the car dealers’ standards, “Exceeding Expectations” would mean OK service…

Or did they delivered the car to your door at work or at home? Did they give you an incredible discount or did something so out of the ordinary that you were in shock and awe (and not in a negative way!) because it greatly surprised you?

These would be cases of exceeding expectations. Giving you a free pot coffee while you wait for the salesman or just going for a test car ride are not. All the dealers do this, so we expect this from them.

They never impressed me much so I guess that I should rate them with 3 stars (average) although they always demand 5 (exceeded expectations) for some unfounded reason.

Perhaps their expectations are lower than normal after you spend more than $25,000 on their product?

But I digress.

Going back to the restaurant business, how many times do think your clients believe that you’ve exceeded their expectations? Sometimes, seldom, never?

How many times did you go to another restaurant where they’ve exceeded your expectations?

It didn’t happen too many times to me.

Perhaps because this industry is very predictable and it’s difficult to be original, or perhaps because we are too conservative to try anything new, dinning at most restaurants is a totally prdictive experience.

Sure you expect good food and good service at reasonable prices. Every restaurant should give you at least that, but what about surprising your clients with some unpredicted extras? They don’t need to be expensive, it is more a matter of thinking than of spending money.

For example, you could tell your chef to prepare some small appetizers that you could give, on the house, to your clients when they order their drinks. Or you can ask your waiters to replace napkins when somebody leaves the table to go to the bathroom or to make a phone call, etc. You could, for example, one night buy flowers and give one rose (or some other flower) to each woman in the restaurant, give a little sack to each guest (or table) with some spices that you’ve used in the dishes… The sky is the limit!

These are very cheap things for you to do that will pleasantly surprise your clients. These little things will exceed their expectations because they don’t get it anywhere else and therefore they are not expecting it.
But don’t do always the same things or they will become routine. Come up with new ideas, always new, always fresh and unexpected. Setup an idea context among your employees and give a price to the ones that give you the best ideas.

Not only your clients will love your place, but you will also make your restaurant unique and invite your clients to repeat their visits looking forward to be “surprised” and enjoy their dinning experience.
Thanks for reading and happy sailing,

Jose L Riesco
© Riesco Consulting Inc.
www.twitter.com/jlriesco
http://www.myrestaurantmarketing.com

Great Service

What constitutes great service when you go to a restaurant?

This is one of these things that are difficult to describe, but you know it when you see it, or better yet, when you experience it.

Some times we go to a restaurant where the service is so obviously poor that there is no question about it: long delays, rude or inattentive waiters, mistakes with the food or drinks orders that don’t get compensated, apologized, etc.

However, other times, although everything seems OK, we have the impression that something is missing. Yes, the waiters were on time and yes, they delivered the food and drinks that we ordered in a reasonable time and yet, however, something is missing: I will call it the WOW factor.

You see? We humans are very tuned, although many times, in a subconscious level, to the feelings and moods of other people. If a waiter is unhappy, or just has a bad day, you will notice. That mood, that unhappiness will be transmitted to the people who their customers.

The reverse is also true. A happy, sincerely smiling waiter, transmits their happiness to their clients, chatting with them and making them feel good. It doesn’t matter that much if they make a mistake or forget some food item because their tables will feel connected with them and understand and forgive their mistakes.

This seems unfair, after all, every person has the right to be moody or unhappy. So how does the waiters mood or disposition relate to the restaurant owners or managers? What can you do if they have unhappy faces or unhappy lives?

Well, to start with, many of the unhappiness of your employees could probably be related to your work environment.

You should ask yourself. Are your employees happy to work for your restaurant? Happy to work for you? If you try to squeeze as much as you can from them, they will resent you and transmit this resentment to their tables, to your clients!

I mention in my online seminar that the quality of your restaurant is as good as the quality of your weakest link. If your employees are not happy working for you, your clients will suffer the consequences.

I am not saying that you need to bend backwards to please your employees. After all, they are also human and therefore always want the best for themselves, even if they are not being fair with their fellow coworkers.

What I am saying is that you should provide your employees with the best work environment that you can (of course while still running a profitable business). Trying to take advantage of your employees by having unreasonable working hours, treating them with disrespect, paying them late, etc. will make them unhappy and will make you lose a lot of money in the long term with your clients.

Happy employees make happy clients. Period.

Thanks for reading and happy sailing,

Jose L Riesco
© Riesco Consulting Inc.
www.twitter.com/jlriesco
http://www.myrestaurantmarketing.com

What’s Special About Your Restaurant?

This is a very important question that you need to answer honestly if you want your place to succeed.

Let’s play pretend for a moment. Let’s pretend that you are one of your clients.

What attracts them to your place?

Is it your great food? or perhaps Your convenient location? Are you the cheapest place around? (I hope not or you will have to make your profit in pure volume.) Do you have a signature dish that attracts people? or Live music? or Does your place have great atmosphere and beautiful decoration? Do you have a view? Easy and convenient parking?

Whatever makes your place unique and different is what it’s called in marketing a USP (Unique Selling Proposition) and this is the key factor that differentiates your place from any other place.

All restaurants have (or should have) a USP so if yours doesn’t jump at you right away, just sit down when you have a few free minutes (I know, I know, it’s difficult to find free time for a restaurateur but you own to yourself and your business to do this exercise) and write down a list of things that make your place special.

If you are not able to come up with any, ask your staff or any of your regular clients, they may tell you something that you didn’t even thought of.

If nobody can tell you anything special for your place, then you are in trouble my friend, because if you or your people don’t find anything special, nobody else will do. In this case you need to “create” something special. Make a new dish, a new signature cocktail (if you serve alcohol), bring and hang art (from an art school or local artists) in your walls…

Once you finally have your USP, use it in your advertising, make sure that all your employees know about it. Tell your clients. This will resonate with them and will make your place to stand from 90% of other places that have nothing special to offer.

Thanks for reading and happy sailing,

Jose L Riesco
© Riesco Consulting Inc.
www.twitter.com/jlriesco
http://www.myrestaurantmarketing.com

Bad Restaurant Service

Bad Service

This weekend I went with my family and some friends to a trip to Long Beach, WA. On the way, we stopped in a Mexican restaurant to get some lunch.

The place was empty (only the 8 of us and another couple) and we were promptly seated in a long table.

Soon enough, our young (in his late teens or early twenties) waiter came with the nachos, no salsa. When after a while we asked him for some salsa, he smiled and brought it a few minutes later. No big deal.

Then we order our foods. Two members of our party didn't get their tortillas for their fajitas. We waited and waited but the waiter never came back to check on us. Another woman in our group ordered a Coke that never made it to the table. We needed to get up and look for the waiter who was talking to another guy by the kitchen. Finally a busboy brought us the tortillas when they were almost at the end of the meal.

In the middle of the meal, a terrible noise startled us all. Somebody dropped a whole tray filled with glasses. It made a terrible ruckus and got all the attention from our waiter (although he wasn't the responsible for the accident). We never saw him again until we had to go again and ask for the check.

They charged us for the coke that we never got but we were ready to leave and didn't want to make a fuss about $1.65 so we paid and left.

Now, we were in our way to Long Beach and it is doubtful that we will stop in that place for a meal any time soon, but even if I was leaving in that town, I don’t think that I would frequent that place. The food, by the way, was pretty good.

I always said that food in a restaurant is important but service is almost as important. If one of the two fails, the dining experience also fails.

I see often restaurateurs hiring very expensive chefs that get lavishly paid, and compensate their expenses by hiring inexperience (and cheap) servers, often teenagers, who are neither interested in the business nor knowledgeable of what a good dining experience entails.

Don't make this mistake. Good food with poor service is as bad as bad food with great service. Both need to be in balance if you want your place to succeed. Select the best servers that you can get, train them continuously (teach them the foods, the wines, what makes your place unique and special) and don't try to squeeze as much money as you can from them. Not only they won't be motivated to offer an excellent service but they may even resent you and pass that resentment along to your clients.

Remember, the weakest link in your business will setup the standard.

Thanks for reading and happy sailing,

Jose L Riesco
© Riesco Consulting Inc.
www.twitter.com/jlriesco
http://www.myrestaurantmarketing.com

It’s Always Your Fault: Assume it

Paul Arden, famous writer of the best-selling book: “IT’S NOT HOW GOOD YOU ARE, IT’S HOW GOOD YOU WANT TO BE” (highly recommended read, very small and easy to read book) has a whole chapter titled: IT’S ALL MY FAULT. This is his first paragraph:

“If YOU are involved in something that goes wrong, never blame others. Blame no other but yourself.”

This seems to go against human nature. Whenever there is a problem, we human beings, try always to find a responsible to blame (other than ourselves, of course, we are always very understanding with ourselves).

Restaurants are unique businesses because of the incredible number of problems that could arise (see my free newsletter Problems and Crisis for some hands-down solutions and strategies to cope with daily problems).

However, as owners/ managers we are ultimately responsible for any problems and to come up with solutions.

One of the worst things that you can do, as a leader, is blaming your people (or even worse, as I saw with my own eyes a restaurateur to do: blaming your clients) for anything that goes wrong.

If the food arrives cold or late, or the service is lousy or your place is not well located… you need to assume responsibility and think of ways to improve it and make it right.

Restaurant business is a people business and as such, subject to human errors.

Your waiters may trip and spill food over your clients, your chef or cooks may have a bad day when the food doesn’t taste as good as usual, five things break at the same time, somebody gets sick and you are short on personnel…

Your job is no to blame people for these problems, it is to find solutions and make your clients happy regardless of what happened. Your clients are not responsible for your problems so blaming your staff in front of them to excuse the problem doesn’t help you at all.

Your clients are also people and therefore understand that things can go wrong. It is only when the big ego of many restaurant owners gets in the middle that things start going south.

If a clients don’t like their food, don’t argue with them. Instead, offer them a solution: change their food, offer them another dish (if they really don’t like that one), give them a refund if they lost their appetite. If the food arrives late, apologize and offer the clients a compensation. Perhaps a free entree if there is a party (you will still make a profit), or a free dessert if they are not spending much money.

People always appreciate the willingness to fix problems.

If one of your waiters trips over and spills food, don’t get mad at them. Offer your client to pay for their dry cleaning and give them a free meal. They will be happy and you won’t make a scene in front of your clientele. Besides, getting mad at the waiter will only make them more nervous and clumsy and can bring more unfortunate events.

Of course, if you see that one specific person is very clumsy, careless and prone to accidents, you should consider replacing that person (probably they are in the wrong job anyway) but don’t deal with this issue in front of your clients when your place is full of people.

At the end, you are responsible for hiring your employees, for training them and for motivating them. If they don’t perform up to the (high I presume) standards that you’ve setup for your place, you should ask yourself why.

Is there a lack of training, of interest, of skills? If so, they are fixable. You can setup a training program, motivate your employees by explaining your philosophy and rewards system…

If, however, an employee is hopeless or dishonest, get rid of them. The world is full of honest and good people willing to do their best to make your clients happy.

So, assume your problems, deal with them and give your clients the best experience that you can. Be honest and open with them if something goes wrong, and explain that you assume complete responsibility and will deal with the problem to make them happy.

Remember, at the end, it is always your fault so deal with it.

As usual, please let me know what you think. I love to hear from you.

Thanks for reading and happy sailing,

Jose L Riesco
© Riesco Consulting Inc.
www.twitter.com/jlriesco
http://www.myrestaurantmarketing.com

The Annoying Yelpers

Caroline McCarthy in an article in CNET mentions how restaurant and cafe owners are angry about their customers (or former customers, I guess) complaining about them in Yelp.

Yelp is a business reviews site with a very vocal user base willing to be brutally honest about the quality of their local restaurants and bars (among many other businesses).

Nowadays, only few people go to restaurants after looking at the ads in the Yellow Pages (for more information about the Yellow Pages as a marketing vehicle for your restaurant, please read my previous blog).

So what do web savvy customers these days? They use Yelp (or other websites like Citysearch.com, Zagat.com or Restaurants.com) and read the comments and reviews in these sites from other people’s experiences before deciding to go to a new restaurant. Negative comments from angry customers have a big (negative) impact in local restaurants.

Yelp.com, being a for profit business as it is, doesn’t want to get the business owners alienated and rioting againts it, so they have just launched a new service so that the business owners can interact with the site’s users.
The service is called “Yelp for Business Owners“. This is a special section in Yelp.com site that lets business owners register for special Yelp accounts, which they then need to verify by phone.

Once registered, restaurant owners and managers (just like you), have access to some analytics (namely to see how many people have been viewing your restaurant page), receive e-mail alerts when you have new reviews, update useful information like your hours of operation, contact information, special menus, etc. You can also send messages to the users who have already reviewed your business.

Yelp won’t charge you for these special accounts.

Caroline mentions that this service will likely have its biggest splash in cities like San Francisco, where Yelper is based and where “Yelper” has become a pejorative among some restaurant and cafe owners.

If you are familiar with my thinking (you can read my previous blogs or the Introduction to my Seminar to get some more information), you know by now how much importance I give to a total client satisfaction strategy.

You shouldn’t need to wait for your clients to leave your place disgrunted and write bad reviews about you or your place in Yelp (or any other online site for that matter).

Your job is to make your clients 100% happy with their experience in your place, even if you have to give them a partial refund (or a complete free meal if the situation so requires, to make them happy).

And believe me when I tell you that, although you are doing this to please your clients, there is something on it as well for you. There are several benefits for you if you follow this policy:

• The (now) happy clients won’t write bad things about you in the online forums (no need for you to lose your precious time doing spin control, think how much do you value your time).
• They may even write positive comments about how you turned a bad experience into a good one.
• These clients would probably go back to your place to try again, therefore giving you again your money back (and perhaps if their next experience is excellent, becoming regular clients).
• One negative comment about your place will make you lose tens or even hundreds of potential customers that would’ve (otherwise) decide to give you their patronage. After all, who wants to try a restaurant full of negative comments? Not me for sure.So you see? All of the sudden a full meal refund doesn’t look so bad, does it? Think about it as a small marketing investment that it will pay you many times over instead of a loss.

In these times of free access to information, the customers are in control. There is nothing (or very little) that you can do to mitigate the damage, once the customers leaves your place unhappy. They will tell the whole world about their experience. You can count on it. The only thing that you can do is when they are still in your restaurant.

Offer them a free meal, give them a discount coupon so that they can go back and try again. Do whatever it takes to mitigate their annoyance. Above all, don’t let them walk away unhappy. You will regret it.
Please let me know what you think. I love to hear from you. You can reach me at jose@riescoconsulting.com

Thanks for reading and happy sailing,
Jose L Riesco

Jose L Riesco
© Riesco Consulting Inc.
www.twitter.com/jlriesco
http://www.myrestaurantmarketing.com

Using cash rewards to bring people to your restaurant

Today I stumbled upon a Web site that uses cash rewards to bring people to restaurants.

I won't name it, but if you look in Google for Restaurant Marketing, they show up in the Sponsored links quite high (under the heading: Restaurant Promotions).

Once you go to their web site, they have this Heading: Drive Huge Traffic To Your Restaurant With A Big Prize Offer!

There are so many wrong things with this marketing approach that I don't even know where to start...

Ok, perhaps I do, let's try this:

• You will spend lots of money attracting new customers.
• These customers will go to your place only because of the Prize Offer.
• You will probably fill the restaurant once.
• These are bargain seekers, not quality customers (the kind of clients that you want to attract and cultivate).
• They won't come back again (at least that you give them more prices or freebies).
• You will make little or not money, even with a full restaurant.
• You may alienate your existing clients.
• You will attract the cheapest customers ever.

Do you think that this is worth it? I really don't think so.


Instead, spend your money bringing back your best clients. Give them incentives to come back with their family and friends. (I've talked about this in my previous blog, this strategy is also mentioned in detail in my Restaurant Marketing Strategies Seminar). This is the best way to spend your marketing dollars.

Forget about promotions, forget about ads in newspapers and magazines. Instead, spend your time and your money cultivating your existing clients.

If you do this, your return on investment will be always well spent. You will invest your money wisely and you will attract the best clients. If they don't come, you don't pay! Now this is being strategic!

Thanks for reading and happy sailing,

Jose L Riesco
© Riesco Consulting Inc.
www.twitter.com/jlriesco
http://www.myrestaurantmarketing.com

Marketing Your Restaurant in the Yellow Pages

Many restaurant owners spend an incredible amount of money advertising their restaurant in the Yellow Pages.

It always amazes when I see full pages advertising a restaurant in the Yellow book. Let’s face, do you know anybody who decides to go to a restaurant by looking at the ads of the Yellow pages? I surely don’t.

In these days of ubiquitous internet access, people go online checking for restaurants and they trust more the reviews of other people than whatever marketing materials restaurant owners can put out there.

Personally, I think that the mission of the Yellow Pages is for somebody to find the place’s phone number to call and make a reservation. Yellow Pages are great to find a plumber or a service that you really need, but are really bad to look for a place to eat.

Eating in a restaurant is an emotional experience. You go there with expectations of having a great time, of sharing a meal with your family or friends and it’s not a place that people pick because it has a great name or a good ad (or at least they shouldn’t).

But let’s do a quick math to prove my point. Let’s assume that you spend $3,000 a year in Yellow page ads, and that your average ticket per client is $30. Now, from these $30, you get 50% profit. This means that for each client, you spend $15 in cost and get $15 in profit.

So doing easy math: $3,000 spent / $30 per customer = 100 customers, but since you make 50% profit, you need to bring 50 customers just to break even. (You can do this same exercise using your own numbers).

Do you really think that you are bringing 50 customers because of the Yellow Pages ads?

I sincerely doubt it; but there is a simple way to prove it.

Create a special coupon that people can bring when they come to your place and put it in your Yellow Pages ad. Offer a free dessert or some kind of discount. In this way, you can measure the effectivity of the ad.

If you see that you get more than 50 people coming in with the coupon, great; this means that your ad works and you can feel good about spending the money. If not, well… you know what to do.

However, there is another way, a much more efficient way for you to spend these $3,000 and have guaranteed results. Create a special “Great Clients” coupons with a discount, and offer them to your best clients. You could discount 20% of their next meal, for example. This means that your profit per client with these coupons will still be 30% instead of the usual 50% (50% profit - 20% discount =30% profit).

In this way, not only you increase the odds that these great clients come back to your place, but you don’t waste any money.

If they come back, great, you still make a profit and they will probably bring quality people (like themselves) with them. If they don’t come back, you don’t spend any money. This is a win/win situation for you.
Do you see where I am going?

The best way to market and promote your restaurant is always by spending the money in promoting repeated visits from your existing clients, instead of trying to capture new customers all the time.

Not only you will maximize your investment, but every penny that you spend will be measurable and will contribute to the satisfaction of your existing clients.

In my Restaurant Marketing Strategies Seminar, I dedicate a whole module to the important mission of increasing the frequency of visits from your existing clients.

This is one of the three only ways to increase your business, and perhaps the most important of the three (the other two being: increase the number of new clients and increase the purchase amount per client).

Don’t forget to participate in the forums.

Happy Sailing,

Jose L Riesco
© Riesco Consulting Inc.
www.twitter.com/jlriesco
http://www.myrestaurantmarketing.com

When aren't customers good for your business?

Alexander Kjerulf self defined as “Chief Happiness Officer” writes in his blog http://positivesharing.com/ about cases where customers are more trouble than benefit for the businesses.

He focuses his examples on the airlines industry, where thousands of people fly every day and have a few customers that are more trouble than benefit.

Mr. Kjerulf these top five reasons why business shouldn't follow the strategy: “The customer is always right”. I will add my take on this applying his reasonings to the Restaurant industry.

1: It makes employees unhappy
Mr. Kjerulf says that business owners should always be in the employee's side since they want to keep their employees loyal.

Of course, things are a little different in the restaurant business. Disgruntled customers mean no tips for waiters and really bad publicity (via online forums, etc.) for the restaurant.

Although I agree that you need to be loyal to your employees, and that if a customer is not reasonable and threatens any of your employees you should take always the side of your employee, I sincerely think that your employees could/would put up with any difficult customer if their demands are not unreasonable.

Happy customers are good for everybody (more tips and more referrals) and not all your clients will be pleasant and having nice personalities.

2: It gives abrasive customers an unfair advantage
The reasoning here is that abusive people get away with anything and get better treatment than nice people.

Again, I disagree here. Abusive people perhaps can bully their way once or twice; but your employees will always treat better nice clients by having extra attentions with them, engaging in personal conversation, etc., versus serving the minimum needs of nasty customers so that they don't complain.

3: Some customers are bad for business
He has a point here. Some customers are impossible to please. Perhaps they have some mental disorders (how many people walk the streets with mental problems? Many for sure) or are just grumpy or unhappy with their lives and they share their unhappiness with everybody around them, or more specific with your staff since they probably feel superior and want to let them know who's in control.

What can you do with these difficult customers? Well, I would suggest you to try to please them, within a reason.

However, if you see that they become aggressive or disruptive, invite them to leave your premises and tell them that you will call the police if they don't comply.

The limit of tolerance is the point where they start bothering other clients. This is never acceptable. You can't afford to have a few out-of-control customers spoiling everybody else's dining experience.

4: It results in worse customer service
Mr. Kjerulf's point here is that happier employees make happier customers. I don't doubt this. I just think that disruptive customers are a minority and your employees should be trained to deal with them. Of course, you need to care about your employees and side with them when they are right, but you also need to care about your clients.

At the end of the day, your clients are the ones who give you the money so you need to keep a balance.

5: Some customers are just plain wrong
The example that Mr. Kjerulf gives here is about a passenger that behave like a jerk. Again this kind of behavior fits into the disruptive category that we mentioned before. This passenger, with his behavior, wasn't only rude to the flight assistants, he was rude to the rest of the passengers and therefore this can't be tolerated.

To conclude, your customers have the right to ask for a great dining experience in your place and should ask you to make right something that it's wrong. However, they don't have the right to be rude to your staff or disruptive to the rest of your clientele. This is the point where you should intervene and ask them to leave your premises, even at the expense of not charging them for the food. It is better to lose a few dollars that to start a confrontation that makes the situation very uncomfortable for you, your employees and the rest of your clients.

Any Comments? Please let me know what you think.

Thanks for reading and happy sailing,

Jose L Riesco
© Riesco Consulting Inc.
www.twitter.com/jlriesco
http://www.myrestaurantmarketing.com

Continuous Improvement Process

Japanese companies break down all their major tasks into three basic categories:

• Innovation is often the responsibility of the upper management
• Maintenance is the responsibility of the workers
• "Kaizen" is everybody's responsibility

Kaizen is the process of continuous enhancement. It is the ongoing, systematic, incremental improvement of how things are done every day. We are talking about the small, almost insignificant changes that, taken one by one, don't seem like much, but once accumulated over time, they add up to an incredible performance.

You can apply this Japanese wisdom to your restaurant.

As a restaurant owner, it is your responsibility to come up with innovative ways to run your business, to create new marketing ideas and campaigns, to do the best to outsmart your competitors, get to know your clients and offer them a unique and satisfactory experience. Remember that clients go to your place looking for an experience, if you don’t provide them to them, they will go somewhere else!

Your employees are responsible for the maintenance. They run the business on a daily basis and they have to make sure that it is conducted in the best and most professional way. The food needs to be delicious and served on time, the clients need to be treated politely and respectfully, the place needs to be clean and pleasant, etc.

So what about Kaizen? All of you, from the owner to the janitors who clean your place, can contribute to the improvement of your restaurant by caring about it and giving you feedback for improvement.

Listen to your people when they make suggestions to you. Welcome the suggestions. If they make them, it is because they care about your restaurant, because they care about you. An uninterested employee is an apathetic employee.

If everybody contributes to improving your place, small as the improvements may be individually, they will make a big impact when taken together.

From moving the position of a table to give you clients a better view, changing the soap in the bathroom so that it smells nicer; replacing the brand of bread if it is not crispy enough (or your people discover a new provider with a more delicious taste, etc.), every detail, every step that isolated won’t amount to much, it will make a world of difference when added together.

It is very difficult, (I would say impossible) to run a perfect place. Things happen, people are moody and variable.

However, making small changes, continuously improving your operations all the time, will bring you closer to a place where people will notice the difference.

Thanks for reading and happy sailing,

Jose L Riesco
© Riesco Consulting Inc.
www.twitter.com/jlriesco
http://www.myrestaurantmarketing.com

Surveys and Car Dealers

I don't know about you, but I hate the Car Dealer Surveys.

Some months ago, my wife and I bought a new car: a Toyota Prius. The car dealer didn't know much about the car. He told us that all the models came with a rear camera (wrong) and he even had difficulty starting the car (you just need to push a button instead of turning a key). He was a nice guy and we loved the car so we bought it anyway.

Since we had the kids with us and the purchase of a car can even dent the patience of the most dedicated Zen Monk, we left the dealership asking our sales person to prepare the paperwork for us so that we could come a couple of days later and just sign it in.

Of course, a couple of days later we showed up just to find out that the paperwork wasn’t done (he hadn’t even started it). We waited patiently (again with the kids bored and complaining) and after two more hours we’ve got the car. All in all, a normal car buying experience.

But now, here it’s the kick: after all was done and we sat on the car ready to leave, the smiley car dealer comes by with a Toyota survey and ask us to fill it in saying “Anything less than 5 stars is unacceptable”. Five starts means “exceeding expectations”.

Now, I am not really picky, I was ready to score as average since the service was average (actually it was probably below average) but come on! Exceeding expectations? I don’t think so (and really I don’t have very high expectations about car dealers).

So I’ve just ignored the survey (he was a nice guy after all and I didn’t want to damage his scoring) but I kept on wondering what’s the meaning of these surveys anyway?

Does really Toyota (or any other car manufacturer for that matter, since this happened to me also at Honda) think that all their dealers exceed customers expectations? What’s the game here?

I mention this anecdote because we don’t want to repeat this mistake in our restaurant business. If you ever ask your clients for feedback, ask for (and expect) genuine feedback and don’t get mad or defensive if the feedback that you get is less than optimum.

The purpose of feedback is to gather realistic information about your business so that you can improve it. By conditioning your audience about what to write in the feedback, you lose its purpose.

Ask sincerely and expect candid answers. This is the only way for you to get better and to make your place among the best in the industry.

If you only want to hear positive things, then don’t bother with a survey, have your friends talk nicely to you about your place. It won’t help you improve your business, but it will make you feel good and/or bust your self-esteem.

However, if you are serious about improving and getting better at what you are doing, then you need to confront the reality and accept the criticisms. Analyze and address all the critics. Even if they are due to a human error or a mistake, you can always thank the person giving you the feedback and either compensate them (if appropriate) or assure them that the problem or issue won’t happen again.

Also, try to see if you can find patterns in the comments. If so, this is an area that you need to focus on and improve. Again, thank the people who gave you the honest feedback, and put together an improvement plan (involve your employees in its implementation).

At the end, using feedback to improve your business is the best way to get ahead of your competitors. Unfortunately in this industry, owners often disregard honest criticism and always try to justify their actions, even if they or some of their employees were responsible for whatever wrong it happened (we are all humans, we all make mistakes from time to time) instead of using this feedback as a way to improve their processes and their employees.

And since we are talking about feedback, please feel free to send me any feedback regarding these blogs. Do you find them useful? Do you think that they are too obvious or a waste of your time? Just let me know. I won’t get mad. I promise.

Thanks for reading and happy sailing,

Jose L Riesco
© Riesco Consulting Inc.
www.twitter.com/jlriesco
http://www.myrestaurantmarketing.com

Frustration

I'm getting really frustrated now.

After more than a week after I sent the application to get my Merchant account ready (from Authorize.net) and not hearing from them, I pickup the phone and call on Friday to check the status of my application.

A lady took the call and told me that they were waiting for me to send them information regarding my web site, as well as the price of my product (online Seminar) and a copy of my driver's license.

I told them that I faxed all that information last Tuesday. After a few minutes of looking around, she found the fax with the information. "So it looks like everything is fine now, the lady who takes care of the applications is off today so you should be able to have this done by Monday".

I was expecting to launch this past weekend so I voiced my frustration to her and she told me that she will do "everything I can so that it's ready today".

Of course nothing else happened last Friday. This morning (Monday 7th.) at 8am Pacific time I called again.

They asked me about my company name, etc. and told me "We are missing your driver's license copy as well as information regarding pricing from your web site..."

I tried to be calm. I told this knew person that I already had this conversation last Friday, that I faxed all that information to them last Tuesday and that they should have -for sure- all the needed information since they found it last time.

After 5 minutes hold, she told me that she found the information so that now all the requirements are complete and she will forward this information to the bank and "hopefully in two to three business day, you'll have your merchant account approved".

I couldn't believe my ears. I told the lady that on Friday I was told that today I should be good to go. She told me that they will send the information today since it was incomplete before.

At this point, I lost it. I told her that they were sitting on the complete information for almost a week now and they were delaying my application for no reason. She backup and told me that in fact they already submitted all my information and now they were waiting for the bank's approval. "There is nothing else that we can do to speed up the process" she concluded.

So to make a long story short, I am still waiting patiently for my Merchant account before I can launch and promote my site...

I hope that I can start blogging soon more relevant information.

Have a great day!

Jose L Riesco
© Riesco Consulting Inc.
www.twitter.com/jlriesco
http://www.myrestaurantmarketing.com

Web site almost ready to go

Well, the First Module of my seminar and the newsletter are ready. Also the Web site is looking good (although I still need to perform a full testing pass). Now I've still need to finalize the autoresponders and email campaigns.

I also need to finish setting up the products in my online service as well as test the payments, etc.

Once this is done, I will start advertising the web site in Google and other places to get the word out.

I really hope that people find my Seminar useful. I think that it is full of great information but restaurant owners still need to commit to apply it to their businesses.

Ok, back to work,

thanks for reading,

Jose L Riesco
www.myrestaurantmarketing.com
Copyright Riesco Consulting Inc.

Restaurant Marketing Strategies

Welcome to My Restaurant Marketing Strategies blog,

I will try to write often about issues that interest you.

Of course my time is limited so be patient if you see that I don't update the blog as often as I would like.

I am still finalizing the web site. The forums are now up and running and I have the basic structure done. I've also added this Blog module.

The idea is to use the forums to exchange ideas, information, tips, suggestions, etc. The Forums are your vehicle to communicate with other Restaurateurs. I will be monitoring the Forums periodically answering questions when appropriate, deleting offensive posts, etc.

You can also use the Forums to make suggestions to me about what else we can include in the Web site, give feedback about any of the Seminar modules, or any other ideas that you may have.

There is also a Chat room so if several users are online, they can chat with each other, exchange ideas, etc.

I've already added some good free stuff into the Free Downloads section. Please send me ideas and suggestions about what would you like to see here.

Keep on checking the site since it will grow in depth and scope.

Please send me your feedback at jose@riescoconsulting.com

Thank you,

Jose L Riesco
© Riesco Consulting Inc.
www.twitter.com/jlriesco
http://www.myrestaurantmarketing.com