Why is getting started so tough?

It’s a fact,  the first two years of starting a new business, no matter what the industry, will be two of the toughest of your life. Being an entrepreneur has been described as “Like being manic-depressive, without medication”.  During the first couple of years you’ll be faced with a lot of tough decisions and your business (if your like most) will come dangerously close to closing it’s doors on several occasions.  Paul Graham of Y-Combinator fame says the the most important factor of long term success for any business is just being able to keep it going long enough to figure out who your real customer is (Quite often, it’s not who you think) and how much to charge for your goods and services. If you can stay afloat long enough to do that, it gets much, much easier down the road.

One thing to keep in mind when you are going through the tough times is that you are not a failure, for making bad decisions.  We all do it.  One strategy for keeping a level head is to surround yourself with like-minded individuals, other CEO’s who are dealing with similar struggles.  Quite often this hive-mind can come up with  simple solutions to previously insurmountable problems.

Restaurant Grand Openings

by Michael L. Atkinson Chairman Fohboh.com
I’ve been to a few restaurant openings over the years. Some of them were for my own restaurants. While openings are an interesting tradition, I wonder if they are valuable. Who really benefits? Who is the party for? The customers? Your friends? Your ego?

I just attended a gala event at the new chic Urban Tavern at the San Francisco Hilton. The new restaurant seats about 200, but there were more than 600 movers and shakers, foodies, critics and future customers all drinking, dancing and promising to return. It was a party, to be sure. However, ten reservations were made, and the new restaurant served 92 dinners opening night following the party. Are these future Yelp reviewers ready-to-dine? Is there a ROI for all this effort? Or, is launching a restaurant just synonymous with having a party?

In this case, it just may have worked. There are already reviews on Yelp and CitySearch. Google “Urban Tavern San Francisco” and amazingly, there are many, many things already to read about the place. Interview requests are coming in by the dozens and reservations are piling up. Maybe it’s because of Chef Laurent Manrique’s reputation as an award-wining two star Michelin Chef. Maybe it’s because the restaurant is located in the Hilton in downtown San Francisco. Or maybe it’s because 600 foodies showed up, had a grand time and are already socializing the event online. Maybe it’s happening so fast because of the Internet and crowd-sharing. This is a brave new Internet world and social media is the mover and shaker.

5 Ways to Execute More Effective Foodservice Marketing Programs

by Wilma L. Simons – Owner, Silver Link, Inc.

1.   a. Stop Talking to Yourself (Part 1)- Step outside familiar territory to look at what other companies or restaurants are doing.   Then venture beyond your space and look for ideas in other industries.   How is the bookstore down the street using WiFi to draw more traffic, and then sell to Internet users once they cross the door sill?

1.  b. Stop Talking to Yourself ( Part 2 ) – Admit that you don’t know everything and  delegate what’s not in your area of expertise.  

2. Have documented processes – Are the execution steps all in someone’s   head?   Do you make the same mistakes everytime you do a program?  It’s time to document  procedures for executing a program.  Don’t have time to do all this?   Consider hiring external resources or making this a  project for your summer intern.

3.  Take Your Time – If you try to cram a 6-8 week schedule into 4 weeks, don’t be shocked if there are  missteps, sometimes costing a lot of money along the way.

4.   Set Goals – Metrics – what’s the purpose of your   program?  What results do you hope to achieve?   Sell x units of the new pizza combomeal?  Increase profit at dinner sales by y%?

5.   Figure Out What Really Happened – Before dashing off to the next program, schedule time to analyze what worked and what didn’t. Summarize the details of the program or promotion and discover key learnings with all who were involved. Be sure to incorporate these learnings in your documented processes.

Lather, Rinse, Repeat

The title of this article is more than the (completely unnecessary) instructions on a shampoo bottle. These directions are more applicable to consumer marketing

Lather
Generate excitement among your customer base.  Also known as , working them into a lather is the first step in any successful marketing campaign.

Rinse
Show them the results.

Repeat
Do it again and again, honing your message until you have just the right mix.

Give extra juice to your coupons

Here’s a tip: Take the coupon section out of the Sunday paper and put it aside for four weeks – don’t even bother to look at it. Four weeks later, open it up and clip everything that’s even remotely of interest, whether you’d buy it normally or not.

At that point, take the wad of coupons to the store and just look at the shelves. Magically, most of those coupons you have will sync up very well with stuff that’s already on sale on the shelves. When you combine the sale price and the coupon, you’ll usually be able to get items for next to nothing.

Why does this work?

Coupons in the newspaper are usually the first wave of a product push from large companies. They’ll put out coupons to start bumping up the sales, then they’ll move onto sale prices later on in the promotion. The reason for doing these in waves is so that the overall product sales trend looks solidly positive and not just a big spike with a fall-off. Plus, coupon users who use the product, like it, return to the store, and notice the item on sale are often willing to buy the item again.

From BoingBoing.

Sometimes it doesn’t pay to follow the leader.

It’s sad really, but 80% – 90% of restaurant marketing budgets are spent  getting a new customer to visit for the first time.  This is the least effective place to spend your money.  The majority of new customer efforts are spent in mass media advertising, which is costly and has dismal return on investment.  The fact is, new customer acquisition is 7-10 times more expensive than building restaurant sales through increased frequency, check average and party size.

But restaurant marketing isn’t always about what’s most effective, more often, it’s about what everyone else is doing.  Restaurant operators see that their competitor is on television or in the yellow pages or on a billboard and that they should be too.  They do this without regard for what’s working.  Restaurant owners have to wear so many hats that sometimes they just do what’s easiest – they write a check for mass media advertising and hope for the best.  Mass media is often more about feeding ego than driving sales.  It’s also impossible for most companies to compete in a toe-to-toe battle with the big guys.  Subway spends $290 million per year on television.  They can do that because they are a multi-billion dollar enterprise – a title less than 100 restaurant corporations in the world can claim.  The question you’ll have to ask yourself is do we want to jump off the bridge just because so many other people are?

Excellent Dentist in Downtown Atlanta

If you are a Georgia State Student or work in the Downtown Atlanta area, there is a great Dental Office on Marietta Street across the street from the AJC.  Check them out $25 Coupon for all services

African Art In Atlanta

If you are living in or visiting Atlanta this summer and are interested in purchasing african art.  Check out Gems Of Africa in Virginia Higlands.  They have a coupon for 15% off during the month of July.  They have quite a few unique pieces.

Is your marketing campaign destroying the environment

According to the National Restaurant Association, 62 percent of restaurant-going consumers say they are likely to choose a restaurant based on its environmental friendliness. This metric has not been lost on the restaurant industry; nearly one-third of restaurant operators are planning to allocate a larger part of their budget to environmental efforts this year. Restaurants are taking all kinds of measures to be greener—from changing out light bulbs, swapping out Styrofoam takeout containers to using wind power and water-conserving faucets. And now is the time for restaurant marketing strategies to receive a green makeover too.

 The environmental impact of traditional marketing channels is substantial.

 o According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Greenhouse Gas Inventory Report, over seven billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent greenhouse gases were emitted into the Earth’s atmosphere by the US in 2006 and a significant percentage were emitted by business activities associated with print media advertising.

o Research by the Institute for Sustainable Communication reports that a single ad page run in a popular consumer magazine can represent as much as seven tons of carbon dioxide emissions when supply chain factors associated with papermaking, printing, logistics, transportation and landfill disposal or incineration of post-consumer and unsold media are taken into consideration.

o 100 million trees are used each year to produce direct mail which contributes 4 million tons of waste each year in the U.S. according to the Center for a New American Dream.

 

One of the easiest ways to begin reducing your restaurant’s impact is to start the move from traditional paper-based marketing towards other channels such as email, mobile and web search – to get your marketing message across. While the environmental impact of switching to any one these new marketing mediums has yet to be studied at length, the results are lowered consumption of natural resources and less waste to our landfills. And though email marketing may require some print, it is more targeted and those who receive restaurant offers and coupons via email can choose to print them only when they will be used.

 With online marketing, the benefits go beyond its green appeal; they also make economic sense. For example, restaurants that are using email to respond are seeing real value for their efforts. Last year alone email had an ROI of $48.56 for every dollar spent on it. And it’s no surprise why. Email connects restaurateurs with their most valuable customers and rewards them for their loyalty, increasing customer frequency, revenue and overall brand awareness. In comparison, direct mail only produced a $15.57 return and lacks the additional green benefit of email.

 Good for the environment and good for business – a winning combination!

How can high gas prices “Help” my business

I’ve always been a bit of a contrarian. When everyone else is buying in the south I like to buy in the north.  The premise being that there are opportunities to be found during tough times, you just need to know where to look.

Currently everyone is running around like Chicken Little  because of rising gas prices.  This morning the news reported that gas prices could rise up to $7 gallon before it’s over.  The reality is that even though this will put some pressure on the overall economy, people still need to eat and clothe themselves, they just will do it closer to home.  As a restaurateur or retailer,  you should start looking for ways to market your business to customers who are nearby you.

Try using gas prices in your message. For example, “Tired of burning half a tank of gas to eat downtown. Our food is just as good and our waiters are slightly less snobbish”.  You can probably think of several catchy taglines using this tactic.  in short, staying positive and creative is the key to surviving a tight economy.