Archive for August, 2007

FREE Restaurant Marketing Seminar Update

We have been inundated with requests from owners all over the country to move the FREE Restaurant Marketing Seminar back a week. And we are happy to do so. So we have now re-set the date for September 18th. Check out the details here. There are still 13 seats left.

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Hot Areas Of The Business

The Sweet Life
The nation’s sweet tooth is becoming more insatiable, driving everything from the franchising industry, where cookies and ice cream concepts are growing categories, to the fine-dining industry, where diners are staying more often for the grand finale.

Dessert has become such a significant portion of the food industry that it’s warranted its own annual trade show since 2003. Meanwhile, according to Hudson Riehle, senior vice president of research at the National Restaurant Association, almost 1 in 3 fine-dining operators reported that consumers bought more desserts last year than in the two previous years. In an increasing number of cases, high-end desserts are stealing the spotlight, as entire independent restaurant concepts are being founded on the premise of tasty, upscale indulgence.

Paul Conforti and Kim Moore, 36 and 40, respectively, researched the restaurant industry for a year while attending Harvard Business School before they opened the doors to their first upscale, dessert-focused restaurant, Finale Desserterie & Bakery, in Boston in 1998. Offering an exquisite menu featuring Valrhona chocolate, honey caramel gelato, nougat mousse and cherry almond Florentines, they are often credited with the distinction of starting the first high-end dessert concept. Their focus is as much on high-quality ingredients as it is on the overall experience. Says Conforti, “Making sure [customers] have the best dessert of their life is important, but it’s also about the atmosphere, service, background music [and] cleanliness of the restaurant.”

They have since grown their restaurant concept into a $6 million-plus business and are about to open their fourth location this month. Planning to open three more locations in Massachusetts next year and to reach Washington, DC, by 2009, they are working toward their ultimate goal of going nationwide. With an idea as divine as upscale desserts, $1 million in sales can be achieved with only one location, and the proof is in the pudding: One of Conforti and Moore’s locations makes twice that much annually.

Coffee

Whether you want to buy a franchise or do it yourself, check out 7 hot markets that can make you a millionaire.

Starbucks revolutionized the coffee industry by transforming the beverage into the most necessary of luxuries, but numerous independents and ambitious franchisors have profited from coffee’s popularity and are riding on their own caffeine high. According to Rob Stephen, immediate past president of the Specialty Coffee Association of America, a coffee trade association, opportunities in the industry abound. In fact, according to the SCAA and Mintel Group, the industry grew to an estimated $12.27 billion last year. So if you thought Starbucks had the market locked down, think again–many are drinking in their own share of the profits.

Eric Schmidt, 43, is the owner of a Dunn Bros Coffee franchise in Lawrence, Kansas, and although he just opened his coffee drive-thru in March, he’s already working on opening two more coffee kiosks and estimating total year-end sales to be in the low seven figures. While he believes he could have reached this point with his own coffee concept, he has no doubt that buying a franchise helped him avoid many of the initial difficulties. The wealth of information available to him and the one-on-one assistance with finding the right location enabled Schmidt to get off to an impressive start.

But in moving forward, the defining strategy for success has simply been Schmidt’s own commitment and constant presence in the business and his community. From personally making sure that customers’ needs are met to being involved in local civic organizations and the nearby university, Schmidt makes sure all his bases are covered. “That’s probably the single biggest thing about it,” he says. “You have got to be completely involved in it from the day you open [your] doors.”

For those looking to establish their niche, Stephen identifies two trends taking place in the industry: product differentiation and point of view. In a market once defined by regular or decaf, coffee consumers now pay attention to the very farm where the beans are grown. Says Stephen, “You’re seeing coffee labels growing to three lines.”

Customers are also looking to retailers for opinions and overall expertise, so it is important for coffee entrepreneurs to be knowledgeable about the products they’re selling. Stephen believes that quality products, knowledge, point of view and a good location are the defining factors of success for both independent coffee entrepreneurs and franchisees.

So what’s ahead for the industry? Says Stephen, “We’re seeing a renaissance in iced and frozen beverages as a way to get to a part of the market that’s interested in soda or energy drinks.”

Source: Entrepreneur.com

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10 Costliest States for Business

Hawaii, New York, and Alaska are the most expensive states for businesses, but Connecticut has the highest costs associated with wages, according to a report by the Milken Institute, an economic think tank.

The same three states took top spots in the institute’s Cost-of-Doing-Business Index last year. The index, which is sponsored by the California Manufacturers and Technology Association, takes into account wage costs, taxes, electricity costs, and real estate costs for industrial and office space.

The states with the highest and lowest costs in those individual categories are:

The ten most expensive and least expensive states for business overall follow. An index score of 100 means that the state is equal to the U.S. average.

Ten Most Expensive States

Ten Least Expensive

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Help…My Brain Is About To Explode

Is it just me or is everybody and his brother writing about how they think wine markups are too much?

These are people who have no clue about the economics of the industry, let alone the individual nuances of each and every market in the US.

For the record, I am going to charge whatever my target market will pay. Period!  If price sensitivity begins to constrict, then obviously my prices will too. If it expands, hey guess what? So will my prices!

And Paris Hilton’s new line of mid-priced jeans is a bargain at $80?

Gimme a break!

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Free Marketing Seminar September 11th

After much ado about a lot, I have been convinced to do one more marketing seminar this year. The difference this time is that there will be NO tuition or fee. That’s right – it’s totally FREE! Not, “you-pay me-a-$1,000-then-if-you-don’t-like-the-seminar-I-refund-your-money-free” – There Is No Fee Whatsoever!

The date will be September 11^th, so you have roughly a month to plan. The location will be here in Dallas – site not picked yet – but it will be close to the airport so you can pop in and then fly back out as soon as you’d like. There are plenty of economical accommodations in the area. I will send you a list of them if you need, just let me know.

You can sign up for the seminar at www.RestaurantCoachingSeminars.com

I am sure this will fill up quickly, but I need to limit it to the first 25 people – this does not include spouses or staff that you decide to bring.

There will be a small homework assignment that you need to complete and send back to me once you register. This will be sent to you shortly after you sign up. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me. We will be focusing on how to develop and then implement a real, living, breathing marketing plan that makes sense for your specific business – and of course there will be no discounts or coupons involved! We’re about making money, not giving it away!

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California Wines Most Featured By U.S. Restaurants

By Martinne Geller

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. restaurants are most likely to feature California wines that sell for less than $39 a bottle, according to a new report.

Start-up research firm Winemetrics LLC released its first annual “On-Premise Wine Distribution Report” on Thursday, ranking the nation’s top 100 wine brands based on the frequency of their inclusion on restaurant wine lists.

Topping the list are Beringer, owned by Foster’s Group Ltd., Kendall-Jackson, and Constellation Brands Inc.’s Robert Mondavi.

In fourth and fifth place, respectively, are Diageo Plc’s Beaulieu Vineyard, also made in California, and UST Inc.’s Chateau Ste. Michelle, made in Washington state.

Winemetrics’ data was gathered from over 10,000 casual and fine-dining restaurants in 20 states. The majority of the restaurants in the survey were casual locations, though upscale restaurants had more extensive lists.

Winemetrics Chief Executive Charles Gill told Reuters that such information can be useful to wine makers, distributors, restaurateurs and investors hoping to scan the industry’s competitive landscape and gauge potential performance, since many consumers buy wine based on what they taste at restaurants. Consumers feel that by featuring certain wines, restaurants are endorsing those brands.

“Brand image is built on-premise, and volume is built off-premise,” said Gill, a former wine brand manager who founded a company called Alambicor seven years ago. Alambicor recently changed its name to Winemetrics.

While sales of wine drunk “on-premise” — meaning in restaurants or bars — make up less than one-quarter of the volume of wine sold in the United States, such sales account for nearly half of the revenue, Gill said, due to the price mark-ups that restaurants put on the bottles they sell.

U.S. consumers spent $24.3 billion on wine in 2005, with $11.8 billion coming from restaurants and bars, Gill said.

The top 100 list is dominated by U.S. producers, with most coming from California. There are also 15 wine makers from France, seven from Italy, two from Australia and one from Chile.

Other brands near the top of the list include the independently owned Caymus and Cakebread as well as Diageo’s Sterling Vineyards, LVMH’s Veuve Clicquot, and Fortune Brands Inc.’s Clos du Bois.

According to the sample, the largest portion of wines consumed in restaurants sell for between $25 and $39 per bottle, according to the report. Those bottles would cost $13 to $19 at retail.

Red wines outnumber whites by a ratio of two to one, with Cabernet Sauvignon edging out Chardonnay for the top variety. Pinot Noir was the second most common type of red wine listed, a development Gill guessed was caused by the 2004 film “Sideways,” in which a wine enthusiast espoused Pinot’s virtues over Merlot, which is now third.

“‘Sideways’ did a number on Merlot. You can’t discount that,” Gill said, though he noted that Merlot far outsells Pinot Noir by volume.

Source: Reuters

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Method for Revealing the Drivers of Customers’ Choices

Hotel and restaurant operators have long wanted to know exactly what aspects of their products and services cause their customers to make a purchase. Although traditional surveys and focus groups give some indications, a most useful method for uncovering what determines a guest’s purchase is known as customer choice modeling.

A new report from the Cornell Center for Hospitality Research explains how this method, known as CCM, can focus on the specific drivers of a customer’s purchase.

In the report, “Unlocking the Secrets of Customers’ Choices,” author Rohit Verma summarizes the results of numerous studies that have found out what specific aspects of a service cause a customer to make a purchase, or what bundle of attributes are most attractive to a particular customer.

An associate professor at the Cornell School of Hotel Administration, Verma explains the three-step CCA approach. “First, we use well-known tools to identify the relevant drivers of buying decisions, including customer interviews and focus groups,” he said. “But next we go beyond those information-gathering steps and compile the most important of those drivers into choice sets of service offerings.

Then we ask customers to compare those choice sets in a controlled experiment, conducted in the form of multimedia surveys, so that we can identify the real purchase drivers.” Verma added that the final step is to identify the key customer-choice patterns using statistical modeling so that managers can adjust their operations to fit their customers’ choice drivers.

Verma notes that CCM approach can be used to assess the desirability of service features and customers’ willingness to pay for those features for specific market segments. Not only will that allow managers to configure their services for different market segments, but it will allow marketers to promote specific products and services to a given market segment.

Although the Center Report gives examples from food service and hotel operations, the CCM methodology applies to any type of business. Furthermore, the CCM approach can also be used to assess customers’ relative propensity to choose a specific service concept, the level of brand equity, and the extent of customers’ switching inertia, as well as calculate market share for various service offerings.

The report and companion interactive spreadsheet template are available at no charge from the Center, at www.hotelschool.cornell.edu/research/chr/pubs/reports

A unit of the Cornell School of Hotel Administration, The Center for Hospitality Research (CHR) sponsors research designed to improve practices in the hospitality industry. Under the lead of the Center’s 55 corporate affiliates, experienced scholars work closely with business executives to discover new insights into strategic, managerial and operating practices. The Center also publishes the award-winning hospitality journal, the Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly. To learn more about CHR and its projects, visit www.chr.cornell.edu

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Personal Update

What most of you don’t know, because I am a very private person, is that about 6 weeks ago, my wonderful, beautiful, loving wife & soul mate was diagnosed with breast cancer.  Fortunately, we found it in a Stage 1 existence and have since then been to biopsies, MRI’s, consultations and just 2 weeks ago, her surgery - lumpectomy - to remove the cancer . The good news is that they got it all out. There is still one more minor surgical procedure to “clean up the margins”, this followed by 6 weeks of daily radiation therapy. The prognosis is that in 8-12 weeks, she will be cancer free.

I am writing this for multiple reasons, not the least of which is that, once again, we find ourselves faced with our own mortality as well as the further validation of the fact that you only get once shot at living. And traveling around the country in the past two weeks from one coast to the other and all points in between to meet with clients and work on helping then discover - or rediscover - their own dreams, has taken on new meaning for me.

Those of you who know the level of my passion for helping people would not believe, unless you see me on a regular basis, the extra high gear I have kicked my life into because of this situation. It has even taken me by surprise.

Life is short. Even shorter for some.  My hope and prayer is that you understand this as well and are about getting on with the living of life and enjoying all it has to offer. That means embracing your fears as well as the challenges inherent in the goals you set for yourself - living your life as a testament to those dreams and hopes realized after the energy and effort has been put forth in their accomplishment.

This was on my mind.

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Are You An Average Restaurant Seeking Average Guests?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBIVlM435Zg]

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More Discussion On Pacing Your Dining Experience

Download Article Here!

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