Restaurant Masterminds

Testimonials are the easiest way to market your restaurant and yourself. However, all to often when I am reviewing marketing pieces from members and prospective new members, 90% of the time their ad never has any testimonials.

Testimonials give you credibility, a third party endorsement. It is no longer you alone saying that you and your restaurant are great, it is someone else saying that you are great.

When you place an ad in a local publication everyone that reads it knows you paid for it. It is “tooting your own horn”.  Now when you place that ad and you use testimonials in your marketing materials you are no longer “tooting your own horn”, your guests are. You should be using testimonials in ALL the marketing material you use: emails, business cards, cold ads, warm ads, telephone and email blasts. Never assume the potential new customer knows who you are.

Let’s talk for a minute about how you can make your sales copy and direct marketing more effective.

One of the simplest yet most powerful ways to strengthen your sales copy is to include testimonials. The purpose of having testimonials is to add “objective” credibility to your promises. And when used correctly, testimonials can do just that.

Good Testimonials Will Separate You from the Crowd
I read a great sales letter last week that was mailed directly from a local chamber member.  It came from a carpet cleaning company. His headline was very good. His pitch was right on the money. His “reasons-why” justified both his offer and his price.

His sales letter lacked only one thing: “proof” that he can deliver on his promises by demonstrating he has already delivered on his promises to others. There were NO testimonials! People want to know that they can TRUST you. Testimonials will do that for you.

So, how do you get all those glowing testimonials from satisfied guests? ASK! You need to get in the habit of asking every single satisfied guest for a testimonial. There are many ways you can do this. Here are a few:

1. Use comment cards and then have a simple check box if you can use their comments in any of your marketing. I use RepeatRewards and always ask guests to leave feedback about their experience.
2. Anytime a guests thanks you and offers positive feedback, always ask them if they can take a moment to write it down and then ask for their permission to reprint their testimonials.
3. Use surveys via email, again, RepeatRewards automatically sends out surveys to my guests asking for feedback and rating their dining experience.
4. Once you’ve received a few testimonials print them up and post them in your entry/waiting area where others can read them. You’ll be amazed at how many people will then give you written testimonials so they to can be recognized.

When collecting testimonials always try to get the customers full name, city of residence and if possible, employment. Be sure to get permission to post their personal information. Once you’ve collected testimonials, let’s now begin to use them in ALL your marketing materials! Every “cold” marketing piece that I create for my restaurant ALWAYS has at least two testimonials from my guests. Again, what others say about you is far more powerful than what you say about yourself.

Lastly, testimonials now offer an entire new way to market to get new guests to come through your doors. So, the next time someone says something positive about your restaurant say to them, “I couldn’t of said it better myself”, and then ask them to write it on paper. You’ll be amazed at the results.

Ben Martinez

Restaurant Masterminds

Every spring, I start speaking with my liquor representatives about the upcoming season and what kind of crazy drink specials we can run to get our customers excited and boost our liquor revenue. Last year we ran two great promotions, the first one was Voodoo Juice. Voodoo Juice is a concoction of four different rums and fruit juices. We had our reps give us quart beach pails to serve it in, and the customer got to keep the bucket. We sold over a thousand buckets of Voodoo Juice, at a cost of thirteen dollars a bucket. This one drink promotion brought in almost fifteen thousand dollars, the best part, our cost on the drink was about eighteen percent. Our net profit was over twelve thousand dollars on one drink promotion. Our customers loved it, and the buzz it created was almost as good as our other summer blockbuster drink special.

The infamous Flip Flop Punch. In speaking with one of my reps, I discovered that they had six cases of flip flops that were left over from the year before. Malibu Rum had them custom printed and for some reason they never went over that well. I told the rep that we would take them all.  We made up a Malibu Rum Punch and called it Flip Flop Punch. We charged seven dollars and fifty cents for the drink and gave away a free pair of really nice flip flops with it. This promotion was so over the top, our customers went crazy, we had parties of ten with piles of flip flops in the middle of their table. Customers were thanking us on the way out for the flip flops and coming back with their friends to get their free flip flops. The only reason we sold six hundred and not a couple of thousand of these drinks is that we ran out of flip flops, we moved every one they gave us and turned them into quick profit for our restaurant. This promotion netted us almost four thousand dollars in profit over a six week period.

This year, we’re working on several new promotions, one is going to be the Billy’s Chowder House Hurricane. We’re teaming up with Southern Comfort, and they are going to provide the buckets for the “Hurricane for two” drink promotion. In addition, we are having Hurricane tee shirts made up for our staff to wear during their shift that say “ I survived the Hurricane at Billy’s Chowder House”. We had such success with the Voodoo Juice last year, our vendor has promised us unlimited buckets for this year. We are going to feature two drink bucket specials and hope to parlay this into a thirty thousand dollar summer drink promotion.

It’s about being creative, while making it fun for your customers. You want to give them something to talk about, create a viral drink special that eventually grows itself. Walking on the beach and seeing lots of tourists in Malibu flip flops that they received at my restaurant was a lot of fun. People waving and thanking me for the flip flops was priceless. Are you having fun with your cocktails? What are you doing to create a buzz in your restaurant? Talk to your drink reps, talk to your wine reps and create a program that will get your customers excited and talking about your restaurant. Imagine customers frequenting your business for the fun cocktails, and then having something to eat. The compelling offer is a cocktail that you make great money on, the redemption is they stay for dinner and pay full price. What are you waiting for? Create the buzz.

Dick Varano

Restaurateurs are some of the most creative people I know, I’ve never seen more small businesses opened on a credit card, or without a lot of cash. It’s phenomenal to think that people can’t find the money for a down payment on a house, yet restaurateurs open restaurants every day without any money in the bank. Our industry is alluring and provocative. People are throwing their hard earned money to be part of the glamor our industry is known for. Everyone wants to be a big shot, or work the dining room on a busy night. Friends call you, begging for a reservation when you’re sold out. Many of us don’t have college degrees, our credit cards are maxed out and yet doctors, lawyers and engineers are envious of us.

The problem with our industry is, most restaurants fail. The percentages are staggering, yet when restaurants fail, there is always someone willing to pick up the lease and open a new concept in the same location. It’s completely mind blowing. I look at some restaurants and I know that they won’t make it before they even open. I’ve spoken to many new restaurateurs and I can’t believe the lack of experience they possess, or even the skill set to give themselves a fighting chance.

Most businesses focus on marketing, the idea is, if you can get enough people to come through the front door, you can pay your bills. This is a great theory, the problem is, if you don’t have systems in place, chances are you’ll blow the experience and your customers will tell their friends of their bad experience and probably never return. Training and systems are the life blood of a well run restaurant, training is an entire topic all on it’s own. I want to focus on systems, specifically inventory controls. Inventory is one of the most important components in your business. If I told you how many restaurants never did inventory, you’d understand all the failures. Inventory is how you control cash flow, if you over order, your money is tied up in something that has no value, cash is king. Proper inventory involves work, it’s not easy keeping up with your inventory on a daily basis. This is exactly what it takes to maintain proper food and liquor costs, while minimizing theft and spoilage.

The old adage of taking inventory once a month is dead, you need to take a complete inventory once a week. Imagine that you are in a seasonal business, July and August are your peak months. If you take inventory monthly and your July numbers are way off, you won’t even realize it till probably mid August, by that time your season is over and you just blew your year. Control your cash, implement systems with checks and balances. We periodically have someone from our office audit the inventory process with the Chef or Restaurant Manager. How would you know if your numbers were tampered with? It’s important to recognize that inventory is cash, (your cash). You would never leave a pile of cash out on your counter, you’d put it in the bank, and then only after you’d counted it. Your inventory is your restaurant’s bank account, protect it like it’s all the money you have, because in a lot of instances, it is. Don’t tie up your money in perishable products, audit your Chef’s purchasing, give him or her perimeters on purchasing. If you’re a family restaurant, you don’t need to purchase fresh truffles.

I think if Restaurateurs spent more time controlling their inventory, instead of walking around the dining room or lounge, comping drinks and pretending to be big shots. We’d see a significant reduction in restaurant failures. Guard your inventory, count it often, protect it like it’s a horde of gold, and watch your business prosper.

Dick Varano

We all have data bases, some larger than others, the key to having a data base is utilizing it to it’s entire potential. This is where things start to get fuzzy. We have this massive amount of customer data and we tend to park it on our computer and from time to time we peak into the vast wealth of knowledge in our data base’s possession. We are all guilty of taking this massive amount of information for granted, we underestimate the power we hold in our possession. It’s amazing to sit back and watch the power unleashed, we are connected to so many people in so many ways, it’s hard to realize the full impact an e-mail, postcard, or even a post on our Facebook site has.

This past weekend, we participated in a local fundraiser, that was hosted by the owner of a local strip mall. The manager was trying to create a buzz for his property, he has two vacant stores and was looking to create some excitement. The brilliance behind his idea was, not only did he connect it to a charity, but, he then turned it into a chowder contest and recruited local restaurants to participate. The winner of the chowder contest was awarded a five hundred dollar cash prize, and the winner of the people’s choice award was given a check for one hundred dollars. When you entered the contest, you were instructed to pick a charity that you would donate half of your winnings to. The brilliance here was, there was a major charity represented, and the money from the sponsors and the entrance fee would be given to this charity, then each restaurant could pick their favorite charity and get the entire region involved. Once you picked your charity, the event planner sent them a notification that you were planning on donating half your winnings to them. They were given posters to put up in their organization and encouraged to have their staff and members come support their restaurant.

We’re a local Chowder House and of course we entered. We met with our management team and all agreed this was our contest to win. We are famous for our chowder, and it was up to us to go out and execute. It wasn’t enough to just win, we wanted to win the people’s choice award. Let’s face it, you never know how a judge is going to vote. To me, the people’s choice award was the one that really counted. We picked the local Senior Center to donate our winnings to, if we won. I called the head of the Senior Center and let her know what we were up to, she informed me that the event planner had already beat me to the punch. Posters and tickets to sell had already arrived. I explained that we wanted to make a statement and that I needed all the members of the Senior Center to come out and support our efforts. We needed fans there to cheer for us if we won. The next thing we did was to send out an e-mail to our ten thousand e-mail addresses and tell them about the contest, who we were supporting and to ask them for their help in supporting our efforts.

Don’t ever underestimate the power of the data base, we not only won first prize and the five hundred dollars, we won the people’s choice award, and to quote one of the judges, “ There really wasn’t even a second place, your restaurant received almost every vote there was.” The best part, we were able to take pictures with all the staff at the Senior Center with our winnings, they all showed up to support us. It felt like we were in the Super Bowl and we were playing in our own stadium. Don’t ever underestimate the power of your data base, your restaurant’s destiny is in your own hands. Unleash the power and be prepared to be awed.

One more quick note, we donated all the prize money to charity and were on the local news as well. These opportunities are available to all of us, if they’re not, create one of your own and enjoy the opportunity.

Dick Varano