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Method
Marketing Newsletter: Volume 2 Issue 26
May 3rd, 2002
Just
Doing It
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Synopsis:
Listening
to good advice is hard. Acting upon good advice is even
harder. Now is the time to act.
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"I
agree with you 100%. Now, what planet did you say you were from?"
Participant
at recent seminar
Your
guests define 'value' by the totality of the experience:
the service, the décor, the food and its flavors
and aromas and the cost: all details that create a memory.
The most memorable experiences come from an organized,
well-rehearsed and communicated performance. Great 'word
of mouth' is built note by note, scene by scene, act by
act, so that by the end of the visit your guest walks
away 'wowed'. Or bored. Or, worse of all, disgusted. It's
your choice. |
Every
time I teach a marketing seminar to restaurant executives and
operators, whether about guest research, '4-wall' walk throughs
or Neighborhood marketing, I see their heads nod "yes,
yes", but their eyes say, "this guy has never been
in a restaurant before." On the contrary, I have worked
behind the line and at the front in many restaurants. I have
been swamped and drowned and killed by too many guests and too
little staff. I lived through bomb threats and chefs who quit
on Saturday night during the rush, and pull the sous
chef with them. I have slung hash, baked bread, de-veined shrimp
and burned, cut or otherwise mutilated my body, all in the service
of a restaurant. I have served rude customers and endured their
rants. So, I know what you face. When I say, that you need to
do the things I suggest, it is with the full knowledge that
most of your life swings from one of two points: a heap of trouble
just waiting to happen and the mess that occurs once the trouble
starts. But, the concepts I want you to adopt are not 'nice
to do', but 'need to do', because there is no more dynamic,
competitive world than restaurants. If something is new today,
you can bet that a dozen or even a hundred others will copy
it within a year. If a small operator develops an innovation,
trust that larger chains will look to copy it and do it cheaper,
faster, if not better. The only thing that cannot be copied
is the intrinsic experience you create that marries your values
and concept with your guest's expectations.
Many of us went into the restaurant business because it afforded
us the chance to be creative. The Method Marketing path takes
nothing away from the creative process. It does, however, protect
you from making sloppy decisions or use fuzzy thinking. It tells
you to find out about your guest in a statistically valid way,
to take that information and fuse it with your values. It exhorts
you to create a story that plans every step of the guest's experience
so that they get the full impact of what you are selling. It
says you deserve to make as much money as the market will allow
and do so with your guests yelling "Bravo!". It demands
that you reward your staff for living your story and the promises
it makes. And finally, it directs you to concentrate marketing
efforts inside your restaurant first and move out from there.
In the process it will protect you from the competitive wave,
which is nipping at our collective heels.
This issue represents the first full year of Method Marketing
News. I want to challenge you to think and act more strategically,
in spite of all the very real problems face you every day. I
know. I have been there.
Next
Issue --> Restaurants That Give
Great "Experience"
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