Have you ever thought about opening a restaurant?

Posted: July 28th, 2010

A budding chef follows her dream and opens a restaurant. She has traveled often to Asia and thinks that a Pacific-Rim theme and style of cuisine would be really popular in her city. She pours everything into this business because she knows that there are people out there who want this kind of food. She spends hours sourcing ingredients and creating a well-balanced menu of all of the best dishes that she found through her travels.

On the first day, the restaurant opens and a few customers trickle through the doors. She stays in the kitchen eagerly waiting for her server to bring the first order. Her guests select dishes from the menu and she uses all of her knowledge and passion to create amazing meals.

After a month, more people have tasted her cuisine but most are not coming back. There are lots of restaurants in this city to choose from and it turns out that not everyone likes spice.

Her tastes are obviously not going appeal to everyone else in the city. The people that love spice didn’t find out about her restaurant before she ran out of money. She didn’t get to know her diners.

What if on the first day, she didn’t hire a waiter. What if she didn’t pre-design a menu. What if she went about things completely differently. Did she need to hire someone on the first day? She could have kept only a small number of tables and gone to the first diners and taken the order herself. She could have talked to her customers and offered to create whatever they wanted. Would they tell their friends? Would they come back? Would this be truly remarkable?

If she did this until she got too busy, she’d have a great idea of what diners in her city wanted. Then she could hire someone to take the orders for her. She could go back to the kitchen and use what she’d learned to create an instantly popular menu. Along the way, she might have built a loyal, passionate community who felt truly involved in the menu that they’d helped to create.

Market research before investing helps reduce the chance of being wrong with our assumptions. Market research used to be expensive, now it just costs a little time because social tools let you talk to anybody, including your target market.

Have you ever thought about starting an online community?

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Posted in Social Media | 1 Comment »

Would you like cheese with that?

Posted: January 12th, 2010

Would you go to Facebook if you saw this on your table?

This card was on the table of quite a nice restaurant I ate at recently.  It became a talking point and the crowd I was with decided it was quite invasive, out of place and more than a little tacky.  From a marketing standpoint, it’s almost futile.  You’re sitting at a table, having a great time with friends and what’s this, is it a cocktail menu…. no but check out our Facebook Page?

Another restaurant I went to on the same street gave out a simple business card with the bill.  That’s classy.  The card could have included a URL to their Facebook Page or Twitter handle (don’t overwhelm – choose one). That way I would have remembered it when I got home and their marketing efforts wouldn’t have intruded on our dining experience.

They would also reach their target clients, the person paying the bill  who likely also chose the restaurant and invited everyone.  I could offer them 10% off their next bill in return for becoming a fan.  I could invite them to tell me how their dining experience was

If I ran a restaurant, I’d begin to Tweet what our specials were.  I’d Tweet about happy hour on the day or afternoon that it happens.  I’d post pictures of our restaurant and fine dishes on my Facebook page.  I’d have my head chef blog about his dishes and style.  I’d also empower my employees to take ownership over the business that they are part of.  This works well when they’re working for tips.

One of my friends works in a pub.   Here’s one of his recent Facebook posts:

If he can get some of his friend network to come to the bar, they’ll bring friends. His tips will go up.  Smart business owners will leverage the personalities and networks that their staff have. Attract the right staff and empower them with guidelines.  They’re on social media all the time anyway, have them use it to your advantage.

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Posted in Digital Innovations and Marketing | No Comments »