2006 May | Restaurant Marketing

23 May, 2006 by Jeffrey Summers Categories :
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Culinary Institute of America celebrates 60

Poughkeepsie Journal

A sparkling cider toast Monday afternoon by 400 students and staff at the Culinary Institute of America kicked off the school’s diamond anniversary celebration. Other festivities are planned this summer and fall to mark the journey the Hyde Park culinary college has made since it opened on May 22, 1946, in a storefront in New Haven, Conn.

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23 May, 2006 by Jeffrey Summers Categories :
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BDs chain solicits guest feedback with electronic comment cards

Excerpt:”Wright added that although it was difficult to measure the direct impact of the electronic surveys, the real-time access to detailed server and restaurant performance information provided by the system is paving the way for enhanced service.

“Servers, grill staff and managers know they are accountable for their performance, and they act on that,” he said. “Just as significantly, we can praise employees as well as coach them on a more individual level to address certain issues. For example, if we see from a report that a server isn’t consistently offering dessert before dropping the check or that grill staff aren’t interacting with customers, we can ask why and try to change these behaviors.”

Sources at BD’s said the chain was benefiting from a programmable “alert” feature in The Informant system. That capability means that managers are notified immediately whenever a guest indicates in the electronic survey that he or she does not plan to patronize the operation again or has never dined there before. Notification is made through a wireless radio paging system.

“The alert affords managers a chance to go to first-timers’ tables to establish real rapport with them and give them an extra nudge to come back,” Wright said. “And when there’s a problem, we can address it right there, hopefully salvaging the customer and the relationship”

Source: “BD’s chain solicits guest feedback with electronic comment cards” by Julie Ritzer Ross (Nation’s Restaurant News, May 9,2006)

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19 May, 2006 by Jeffrey Summers Categories :
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Understanding Your Clients (Guests!) To Grow Your Small Business (Restaurant!)

[Substitute "guest" in this posting for "client" and "account"!]

The era of seat-of-your-pants decision-making is gone. Even if you have great instincts, investigating the Voice of the Client is a powerful tool for avoiding costly mistakes, replicating your success, focusing on differentiation, building a client-defined roadmap to success, and for keeping your high-value accounts.

Source: http://www.raintoday.com/pages/1286_voice_of_the_client.cfm

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19 May, 2006 by Jeffrey Summers Categories :
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Beyond Just “Selling The Invisible”: Variability And Perishability In Services Marketing

How can your company strengthen client relationships and improve its competitive position?

Understanding the characteristics of services can provide a unique opportunity for service providers to improve business success by rethinking their pricing models and packaging options, improving production processes and client participation, enhancing customer focus, and building employee relationship skills.

Source: http://www.raintoday.com/pages/1274_beyond_selling_the_invisible_part_two_.cfm

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19 May, 2006 by Jeffrey Summers Categories :
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How To Use Email To Establish Value-Based Relationships

Relationships are built upon the back-and-forth of communication, including email. It makes you visible, keeps you connected to your market, and literally motivates people to respond. If you do your email marketing right, your recipients will actually look forward to receiving your messages. They may even thank you.

Source: http://www.raintoday.com/pages/1290_how_to_use_email_to_establish_value_based_relationships.cfm

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19 May, 2006 by Jeffrey Summers Categories :
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Leadership in Todays World

Carl Hoffman

The most important thing you do is LEAD your people. Every productive activity on your daily agenda is leadership, regardless of what you call it. You manage, advise, teach, decide, and direct. The list goes on but itâ€™s all leading.

The most valuable commodity of any great organization is the quality of good people. They deserve the most inspired caring leadership you can provide.

Leaders seize the opportunity and use it properly to attain excellence.

A critical factor in the exercise of leadership is the adaptability of the person in charge. Whenever any of the variables change, the necessarily â€œrightâ€ style must change. The leader must then adjust his or her approach. The style that worked yesterday may not work tomorrowâ€“but the leader will adapt. It takes time for a new leader to identify the â€œrightâ€ style of leadership. By the time that leader discovers the correct approach he or she may have damaged his or her credibility. The leader may then have established a pattern of behavior that will stick with him or her for the rest of their lives.

Another component of good leadership is caring. Good leaders care about and take of their people. They help them deal with stress that arise both from the job and from external sources.Leaders never let the pressure of their job interfere with taking care of their people.

What your members of your team or organization say is important. Without exception every group complains to some degree. But this is not always bad. Quality of leadership must be assessed by looking at where the irritants lie. If discussions generally dwell on internal issues within the team or organization, leadership might need improvement. If they focus instead on internal issues at a higher level such as company or corporate headquarters, there is a chance your people are satisfied with your leadership.

Equally important in the assessment of leadership is how participants interact in sensing sessions. This is commonly seen as an indicator of moraleâ€“how they feel about themselves. It is also a broad indicator of how they feel about their organization.

Cooperative groups generally come from good environment. They talk about anything. At times they even complain but they also frequently recommend solutions. The tone and body language of these group suggest that they are basically satisfied with their leadership. The willingness to recommend improvements suggest confidence in their leaders to listen to opinions and to act on recommendations.

Vocal, hostile groups generally come from poor environments. These groups use sensing sessions to vent their frustrations. They donâ€™t sense that their leaders understand or care enough about them to deal with their problems. In most cases, these groups see their leaders adding more to their burden than they take away.

Reticent groups also generally come from poor environments. They hesitate to say anything. These groups demonstrate the resignation that sets in when they feel no one cares about their problems. Alternatively, they may respresent teams that work under repressive leadership that is intoleratnt to â€œwhinersâ€ or threatens retribution for complaining. A good senior leader can do things to overcome poor leadership below them. The converse is not true . Even the most inspired junior leaders cannot compensate for the â€œwrongâ€ style imposed upon them and their team from above.

Carl Hoffman has over 20 years of sales and marketing experience and is owner of many online business ventures. He has authored numerous business related articles. If you are looking to start your own on line business or build on an existing one visit him at Best Work at Home Ideas and Opportunities: http://scarpero.com/success/76/leadership-in-todays-world/

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19 May, 2006 by Jeffrey Summers Categories :
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Word of mouth: Mostly offline and positive

The nature and tone of word of mouth, by the numbers:

56: The average number of times an American discusses brands in ordinary conversations every week.

72%: The percentage of brand-related opinions delivered from a person to a family member or personal friend; 13% are delivered to co-workers and 7% are delivered by a professional or expert on the topic. (I suppose that puts us marketing bloggers in the distinct minority.)

41%: Number of conversations about brands that reference an item seen or heard in the media or in marketing material; 15% refer to an ad, 8% refer to a form of editorial or entertainment content, 5% refer to a point of purchase item, and 4% refer to the lowly coupon or other promotion.

62%: Percentage of marketing-related discussions described as “mostly positive.”

9%: Percentage of marketing-related discussions described as “mostly negative.”

92%: Percentage of word of mouth conversations that occur offline; 71% of those occur face-to-face, and 21% occur by phone.

The numbers are courtesy of a new study (PDF) from the Keller Fay Group.

Previously research by Walter Carl at Northeastern University revealed that 80% of word-of-mouth conversations occur offline, but his sample group was primarily college-age students.
It’s pretty clear, though, that the most word of mouth occurs primarily while we’re not sitting in front of computer screens.

Source: http://customerevangelists.typepad.com/blog/2006/05/most_word_of_mo.html

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18 May, 2006 by Jeffrey Summers Categories :
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Exactly!

Leadership Lessons For Sales Managers
Bill Willard

Leadership, like class, is hard to define, but easy to spot.

Someone once defined management as the effective coordination of the efforts of the individuals in a group to accomplish that stated objectives of the organization. Managers get results by establishing goals and working with and through people to achieve those goals.

As a manager, your success depends on your ability to:

Find and attract career-oriented men and women who have the knowledge, skills and attitudes to do the job, who are motivated to work, and who will cooperate with you and each other, and;
Develop and manage these people to meet specific performance standards.

Management is a process because it involves a series of skills. But management is as much attitude as it is skills. Managers should be helpful supporters, working to build trust and confidence, and seeking to improve performance by recognizing that individuals have different needs, motivations and aspirations.

That means, the more of a leader you are, the better manager you will be.

Happily, most leaders are made, not born. They are cultivated, shaped and strengthened by education, training and real-world experience. Understanding leadership AND management is a good way of becoming more proficient at both.

What is leadership? What does it take to be a leader? Hereâ€™s a short course:

Leadership means having a mission and inspiring others to be committed to it. The mission is everything; leaders approach it with enthusiasm.
Leaders are agents of change; they make decisions based on a vision of the future, not just on established directions.
Leaders take risks to make things happen that would not otherwise happen.
Leaders need a combination of competence, integrity, credibility and authority. Theyâ€™re seen as being involved in a lot of things and able to answer a lot of questions.
Leadership is a collaborative, not individual, process. Itâ€™s the ability to get people to do what you want them to because they want to do it!
Leaders help people do their best.
Leaders depend on themselves and act on their own authority, but they recognize the importance of others.
Leaders ask questions and know how to listen.
Leaders let others talk; they donâ€™t talk about themselves.
Leadership begins when people disagree.
Leaders recognize that performance and progress are forged on the anvil of constructive conflict.
Leaders are willing to be unloved! In the words of Admiral John S. McCain (the late father of the Senator): People may not love you for being strong when you have to be, but they will respect you for it and learn to behave themselves when you do. Try it; it works!

Qualities of an Effective Leader

Leaders are purposeful; they have a clear view of their objectives and avoid digressions into irrelevancy.
Leaders know their stuff; they have a thorough grasp of their subjects, when possible, backed up with hands-on experience.
Leaders are prepared. No matter how well you know what you re talking about, choose appropriate ways of getting your message across. Avoid shortcuts.
Leaders are enthusiastic, but season their enthusiasm with intelligence and appropriate humor.
Leaders understand the use of drama. Dull is boring, so cultivate a sense of staging, especially when addressing a group.
Leaders are confident and easy-going. Regardless of their management style, they speak clearly, projecting their voices and looking people in the eye. Distinct speech is a sign of distinct ideas; self-assurance catches on.
Leaders maintain a positive attitude. They never speak ill of their organizations or of individuals under their management. The glass is always half full, never half empty.
Leaders demonstrate the contagion of example. It s not enough to talk the talk; leaders must walk the walk.
Leaders support their subordinates, giving them the widest possible authority and discretion, while keeping responsibility centralized with themselves.
Leaders live the U.S. Army s motto: Adapt, Improvise and Overcome.
Leadership Makes Businesses Work

If management’s ability keeps systems operating efficiently, leadership identifies management needs and seeks systems to address them. If management skills are required to administer existing programs and systems, it takes leadership to create a vision of success, and get people excited about attaining it.

In short, leadership provided by agency heads, sales managers and other members of the management team makes businesses work. It enables them develop to the limits of their potential, then helps them break those limits.

Bill Willard has been writing high-impact marketing and sales training primarily for the financial services industry for 30 years. Through interactive, Web-based â€œDo-While-Learning â€ programs, enewsletters and straight-talking articles. And fun!

Source: http://scarpero.com/success/74/leadership-lessons-for-sales-managers/

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