Following is a short comparison of two
hypothetical eateries that opened across the street from each other.
One eatery prospered while the other not so much so;
Charlupa's Meat and Such!
Charlupa's owner pretty much has his
head up his ass and so everyone suffers. He opened a rather nice
looking steak joint that was all show and no go! Chuck is his name
and other than that, the elevator didn't go up very high.
When Chuck opened his place, things
went well for a while. But after some time, that wasn't so much the
case. You see Chuck didn't really seem to care about his customer
base. He didn't bother collecting and building an email file on those
who ate at his venue nor did he bother to advertise in print or on
the net. His menu was rather lackluster with no photos of his 'wonderful'
signature dishes... which he never really bothered to tell anyone about. His
staff, while hard working, lacked direction, goals or even a playbook
for success. In a word, the place was blase to the point of boredom.
I understand his people began to refer to him as Upchuck behind his
back....
Herbs Steak and Potato Joint!
Herb's restaurant was run by a guy name
Herb. He was there all the time and made it a point to greet his
customers at the door. Yet Herb was also lazy and so hired on an
intelligent and motivated staff. Herb knew how to delegate
responsibilities and how to incentivise
his people. Every week, Herb offered his staff monetary incentives to
push slow moving or high profit foods. He trained them on how to
build up a loyal clientele following via email and social sites. He
changed his menu every six months to keep it fresh and made sure to
go the extra distance to include mouth-watering photos of items he
was proud to serve. Yes, Herb was a busy man and he was a happy man
as he watched the profits roll on in.
Someone once told me that it was almost
impossible to fail in the eatery business. I'm betting old Chuck is
giving that idea a run for its money!
