Restaurant Masterminds

* YOU Can Have Your Cake and Eat it Too (Very cryptic – read the next section to learn more)

* How Social Networking will Increase your Sales

* Save Money on your Food Purchases with no extra work for you – Guaranteed

* Increase Your Productivity and Increase Your Profit

* How one simple Marketing Promotion made one restaurant owner $23,456.00

* Find out how one member increased his sales by 37% over the same month last year with a  Marketing Promotion that he learned from the group

* You too can get rolling on Facebook and Twitter

* How to Critically Examine Your Business and Ask Questions that Lead to Profit & Success

  We are saving this spot for YOU….

 

 

What are you waiting for – Now’s the time for you www.restaurantmasterminds.com/baltimore.html

 

 

Richard Varano & Ben Martinez

& all the Staff at Restaurant Masterminds
 
“Where Being an Independent Doesn’t Mean Being Alone!”

 

Click here for Ben Martinez Bio - 

Click here for Richard Varano Bio -  

Educational Article : You can have your Cake and Eat it too…

Still undecided on joining us in Baltimore on April 20 & 21?  Well this should make your decision easier.  Our featured guest speaker is none other than the Cake Guy.    Duff Goldman owner of Charm City Cakes and the Star of the Food Networks Show Ace of Cakes.             Duff has been cooking since the age of four, when his Mom caught him in the kitchen swinging around a meat cleaver while watching Chef Tell on TV.    Duff’s creativity with food is partly due to the fact that he comes from a family of great cooks and artists. His Ukrainian Great-Grandmother, “Mamo”, was a baker as well as a renowned cook and fiber artist. Her daughter, Duff’s grandmother, “Nana”, was a silversmith, enamellist, painter and photographer who prided herself on her skills in the kitchen. Duff’s Mom, Jackie, is also an artist who began in ceramics and is now an accomplished stained glass designer on the west coast. Duff studied at the Corcoran School in Washington, D.C. and was at one time a graffiti artist.    He started working for acclaimed Baltimore Chef Cindy Wolf while attending the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. After graduating, Duff left Baltimore to study at the Culinary Institute of America in Napa Valley, California. While in Napa, Duff was a stagiere at the French Laundry, working under acclaimed pastry Chef Steven Durfee. Duff left California to become Executive Pastry Chef of the Vail Cascade Hotel and Resort in the mountains of Vail, Colorado. There, he worked with such notable chefs as Jessie Llapitan, now Executive Chef of the Houstonian in Houston, Texas, and Chef Jason Rogers, late of Olives in Aspen and now at the Borgata of Atlantic City. Duff then left Colorado to bake bread for Todd English’s Olives in Washington, D.C., where he worked under Executive Chef Steve Mannino. Duff left Olives in 2000 when he came back to Baltimore to open Charm City Cakes.    In addition to owning and operating Charm City Cakes, Duff is also a sculptor, artist, and musician- he plays bass in the indie instrumental band “so I had to?” and is an all around good guy with the cleanest hands in town. Duff and his Charm City Cakes staff star in the Food Network series, Ace of Cakes.   Join us as Duff has generously agreed to do a question and answer session with all of you. So we will all find out how we can become Food Network Stars:)    www.restaurantmasterminds.com/baltimore.html   Speaker #2   Leigh Kramer owner of Helicopter Marketing   Leigh is President and Founder of Helicopter Marketing & Communications, specializing in strategic planning and business development for pioneering companies and innovative products and services.  She has 28 years experience in marketing and public relations.  Through her company she provides strategic planning, branding, publicity and other marketing services to small businesses and entrepreneurs. Prior to founding Helicopter, she was Director of Marketing for Continental Realty Corp., and previously, for White Marsh Mall.  During eight years in the field of retail marketing, she worked on redevelopment and repositioning commercial properties and other aspects of retail marketing and merchandising. She was a regional marketing coordinator for Crestar Bank, and a founding partner in Oceana Magazine.  Leigh serves on the Boards of the Children’s Peace Center and KoffeeTalk, and graduated from Towson University with a B.S. in Mass Communications.    Leigh is going to teach us more about Social Networking and by using sources such as Facebook and Twitter and increase your sales.   www.restaurantmasterminds.com/baltimore.html   Speaker #3   Gina Watkins of Constant Contacts     Regional Development Director Gina has a passion for helping small business to succeed. Her ongoing series of dynamic lectures are filled with real-world examples, humor and results-driven wisdom garnered from more than two decades of sales, business development and marketing experience. As an award-winning direct marketer, Gina has been featured on WUSA TV Channel 9’s Mind Over Money show, Dr. Gayle Carson’s Women In Business radio show, in numerous articles, interviews and other prominent media outlets. In her role as Constant Contact’s Washington, D.C., Metro Regional Development Director, Gina draws from her own background as a small business owner to help businesses and organizations of all sizes to create powerful lines of communication with their customers, members, constituents and partners. Teaching people how to use low-cost, highly-effective technology tools, such as permission-based email and online surveys, is her specialty. Gina’s educational programs allow her to be an accessible resource for small- and medium-sized businesses and organizations throughout the Washington, D.C., Metro area that seek to maximize the power of relationship marketing.   Gina is going to explain the in’s and out’s of EMail Marketing and how inexpensive and successful it can be in growing your business.   www.restaurantmasterminds.com/baltimore.html     Speaker #4   Stuart Amoriell CEO of Food Buyers Network      Food Buyers Network™, Inc., founded in 2008, is fast becoming known as the industry’s most innovative Food Cost Control and Procurement Services Organization by combining educational and coaching programs with the advantage of contracted distributor and manufacturer pricing. After two years of behind the scenes, private negotiations with manufacturers, distributors and industry professionals, Food Buyers Network™ publicly launched its services at the 2008 National Restaurant Association Show in Chicago, Illinois. Since this launch, membership in Food Buyers Network™ has grown exponentially.  The current economic conditions of rising food costs and increasingly cost-conscious customers have driven foodservice operators to seek out new methods of controlling food costs without damaging their brand, value or quality.  FBN™ membership answers this need by instantly leveling the purchasing playing field for independent and regional chain operators and becoming ‘Your Total Food Cost Solution.’     Stuart is going to show you how you can save money on your food purchases through your purveyors by gaining access to rebates.   www.restaurantmasterminds.com/baltimore.html     Speaker #5   Diane Small  of Sysco Food Services       Diane Small has been involved in the independent food industry in many capacities for several years – manufacturing, business development, management, marketing and advertising. She currently is a Business Resources Manager with Sysco Food Services of Virginia, an industry leader in servicing independent restaurants. She with restaurants to help them insulate their businesses and grow them in light of the changing economy, by incorporating culinary and business strategies that guarantee success and profit.

Diane’s Topic: Building Blocks for Success – How to Critically Examine Your Business and Ask Questions that Lead to Profit and Success.     And so much more…..   So, again what are you waiting for??  Go get signed up today and use the coupon code “Cake” to save $100. off the registration fee.  This special offer of only $197. will end tomorrow night at midnight so let’s go – get signed up today.   www.restaurantmasterminds.com/baltimore.html

As Restaurateurs, we share so many special moments with our customers, and it’s those really good ones that give us the personal satisfaction that makes our job worthwhile. What we don’t realize is that we are missing out if we don’t capitalize on these moments, because after all these are great memories for our customers as well. Not taking advantage of these brief connections you form with your guests is a lost opportunity that no business can afford today.

The game has changed for all businesses, not just restaurants. We’re all vying for the same dollars; and with restaurants slashing prices, giving deep discounts, and even giving meals away for free, the questions become, “How do we differentiate ourselves from all the rest?” The answer is simple: build a brand that customers want to be a part of. Everyone remembers Bennigans. It was the party restaurant that built its notoriety on their special events, but somewhere along the line they veered off course and lost their identity. TGI Fridays was the cool chain back in the eighties and nineties. Now they are searching for the formula they seem to have lost.

I was at a charity auction last fall and got caught up in the bidding and purchased a half-day photo shoot. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with it at the time; maybe get some updated photos of my wife and I. As it turned out I had a wine dinner coming up at my Italian Restaurant, so I had the photographer take some photos of my wife and I all dressed up before the dinner and then let him work the event and do what he does best. The resulting photos were stunning. I posted the pictures of the event and the customers who attended on our website, put them in my blog and even upload some to face book.

We got a great response from all of our customers that came to the event, like my wife and I they were thrilled to have a professional picture of themselves. We also received great feedback from customers that didn’t go, saying that they would definitely be signing up for the next one. I took two important lessons from this event, one is that I will hire a professional photographer for all my major events (The photographer told me that he would even be willing to shoot for me in trade.). Second, It made me realize that I needed to purchase a great camera and learn how to take high quality pictures. So we can capture those special moments all year round.

Having great pictures of all your events is great; but it is still only one piece of the puzzle. You need to then capture testimonials from all your events. A picture is worth a thousand words, add a great testimonial on top of the pictures and now you have something that speaks volumes. I can’t stress the importance of capturing all these moments and events in your restaurants.

You then need to systematically build a schedule of events for your restaurant. Things like Doctor’s Day and Earth Day can be made into events. The idea of building a brand your customers will connect with is a process. Each event you hold has to be professionally executed and documented. We kick off each year with our Super bowl Party; we feature lots of giveaways and even raffle off a 32 inch flat screen TV. Our buffet is free and we pack the place. It’s a great way to start our year; we condition our customers to check our calendar constantly searching for our next event. We even have theme t-shirts made up for our staff to wear at each event, adding to the atmosphere we’re striving to achieve.

My advice to you is to take the time each fall to plan your event calendar for the following year. Purchase a great camera, learn how to use it, capture as many testimonials as possible and systematically build a brand your customers will want to be part of.

Dick Varano

This process is very easy to handle and can be started just by doing a comment card. The comment card should be given along with the check if not before. The card should ask for all the customers’ pertinent information such as Name, Spouse Name, Birthdays, Anniversaries, Address, Email, Phone and Fax number.
(I can email you an example of a card that we use)
On the back of the card you can ask for testimonials about their experience while dining at your restaurant. Then have a little box for them to check off asking them if it is alright to use their testimonial in your marketing.

All your marketing pieces no matter what they are should include testimonials from your guests. It is a proven fact that what your customers say about you and your restaurant is far more powerful than what you say about your restaurant. Testimonials will lend even more credibility about what you do. Make sure to include the person’s full name and the city and state they are from.

On the top of the comment card to entice your customers to fill it out you can give away a gift certificate every month. So on the top of the card you could add “This card will be entered into the monthly drawing for a $50.00 gift certificate. Of course the amount you give away should be determined by your per person check average. If you are a quick service restaurant with a lower per person check average you may not want to give away $50.00 maybe more like $10 or $15. But if you are a fine dining establishment then you may want to consider a higher amount. I think a good guideline is that the amount you give away should be enough for two people to have dinner.

Once you start collecting the comment cards you will need to determine how to track your information. One simple way is to enter the information into an excel spreadsheet. It is easy to print labels for future mailings from excel. There are also many other tracking programs such as mydatabase.com or getresponse.com. You will want to consider all the factors before you decide where you are going to store your information. If you think it will be easy for your database to reach into the 1000’s of names then it is best to start with a program that can handle and track all the information.

You can also do drawings to gather customer’s information. Guess the weight of the pumpkin is a fun one for the Fall or guess the number of candy hearts in the jar around Valentines Day and so on.

Always always be collecting your customer’s information and testimonials.

Next week I’ll be writing about “Creating a Loyalty Program”.

Ben Martinez – El Jardin Restaurant

This is part one of a two part post (to much to cover in one post with out everyone falling asleep) on how your restaurant can reduce its electricity usage and cost by looking at your lighting.First, let’s take a look at where we are using electricity. Most restaurants use gas for cooking and heating and electricity for lighting, ventilation/air-conditioning, refrigeration, and running computers and other miscellaneous items; with lighting and cooling consuming the most electricity.

Second, let’s look at why it is important to reduce you electricity usage:
According to the Leonardo Academy, most of our electricity created at power plants comes from the burning of fossil fuels. Fossil fuels include coal, oil, and natural gas. Fossil fuels directly cause air pollution when they are burned. They also have indirect environmental effects. These indirect environmental effects include the extraction of fuel from the earth, the construction and maintenance of transportation facilities and pipelines to deliver the fuel to where it is used, and the construction of electric generating plants and electric transmission and distribution lines. Fossil fuels are not renewable – we are currently using them faster than they can be replenished.

What you can do about it:
You can make a difference by using less electricity.

How this affects you:
You will save significantly on your electricity bill each month.

How:
Since lighting and cooling use the most electricity let’s first take a quick look at how these two items often fight one another.

The most common types of lights, and the most expensive to operate, give off both light and heat. And you are paying for both the light and the heat when you turn these bulbs on. Generally speaking, the more heat produced by a light, the more expensive it is to operate the lights. And the more heat produced by the lights the more you need to run the cooling, A/C in warmer months and refrigeration year round – yes the light in your refrigerator is costing you money to balance off the heat. Incandescent bulbs and halogen lights produce the most heat and are among the most expensive to operate. Florescent lights and LED lights produce less heat and are among the least expensive to operate.

Inside the restaurant we find lighting in three main areas; back of the house, the guest area, and inside refrigeration equipment.

Today we will focus just on the back of the house and refrigeration. Next time I will cover the front of the house. This will give you time to look at your current lighting and to make changes.

In the back of the house, the lighting I see the most in kitchens, storage rooms and office areas are T-12 florescent tube lights. These were a good item in the past, but today by replacing them with more energy efficient T-8 lights and electronic ballasts you will save from 15-25% of the electricity they use. All major light manufactures make T-8 lights and you can get them from any lighting supplier but, be warned, you will need to change the fixture. Call your local electric supplier and ask if they have a rebate program that will pay you back part of the cost for replacing the fixtures.

Inside refrigeration equipment, such as your walk-in cooler, replace incandescent bulbs that give off heat with a simple compact florescent bulb that does not. In a space like this with just one or two bulbs the saving on the electricity for lighting will be about $44 per a light bulb, but the big energy saving will be in the cooling cost to off set the heat produced by the old incandescent light in your walk-in.

To keep learning more about how you can drastically reduce your utility bills, save on all of your utility bills, and help save our planet by going green in your restaurant – visit Green Star Restaurant and go-green.

What are you doing to save money on your utility bills, or other steps to go green.  Please share with us and we will pick some of the feedback to share.

You can reach us at help@greenstarrestaurant.com

Wow, Free Food has become all the rage lately. Every time I turn around someone is offering their product for free.  As a chef I am a firm believer that having someone taste your food is the best way to create a loyal customer but my wife would say that service is more important but that’s a debate that will continue for many years to comeJ

Yesterday we decided to stop at Chipotle for lunch and the line was to the door?  Sunday afternoon, was the B team on and having a hard time or what?  Well, as we stood there and the line was moving people were continuing to stream in and then I saw it.  Most people had a brown lunch bag (one of my favorite mail promotions) and as I strained to read it I saw the title on the bag “How bout a free Burrito”  When I got to the cashier I asked the girl behind the counter if I could read the bag and she showed me.  It read – bring this in to your nearest Chipotles before March 8 and let us fill your bag with a free burrito.  I ask her how they marketed the bag and she told me they were in the Sunday paper.  Interesting.

So, as we sat and ate our Taco’s (no burrito I hate reading the doom and gloom in the paper) we discussed how we thought this promotion was working.  I hadn’t seen it advertised anywhere else so only people who read the paper saw this promo, which is fine if you are reaching your target market. 

What do they now know about their customers??  Some of them read the paper and some don’t.  I guess when doing this type of marketing there is a method to the madness and by that I mean knowing what result you are trying to create.

If you are giving away free food then is it to say thank you to your loyal clientele or is it to create a new customer?  If it is number one then make sure the offer is going to your list.  If it is number two then by all means COLLECT THEIR INFORMATION!!  All these potential new customers walked thru their doors yesterday and they did absolutely nothing but give them a free burrito.  I understand for a large company this is a time consuming step but no excuses for the independents out there, don’t make this costly mistake.  This is one of the advantages we have over the chains. If you jump on this free food bandwagon that’s fine but have a plan for further marketing to these customers who come in for your free offer.  Even a short 4 or 5 question survey. Ex. Have you dined with us before?  Will you dine with us again?  What was your favorite thing about our restaurant? And collect their information at the very least their email address so you can continue to market to them in the future. 

Make sure you have a plan before you jump on the free food bandwagon.

Douglas Morse