Brand/Branding

Cause Marketing

What do you stand for?

Today, restaurants must express their humanity and values in authentic and emotionally compelling ways to reach their guests, employees, partners, communities and other stakeholders.

RCSâ„¢ is recognized for its work on behalf of clients in creating and implementing substantive cause initiatives. We work extensively with corporations and leading nonprofit organizations to develop transformational business and social impacts. We are leaders in establishing such relationships and expertise.

RCSâ„¢ defines Cause Branding as a business strategy that helps an organization stand for a focused social issue(s) aligned with its business to gain significant bottom-line and social impacts while making an emotional and relevant connection with stakeholders. Effective cause branding improves your reputation, enhances guest loyalty, builds employee morale and solidifies relationships with key stakeholders.

Restaurants today are embracing a new set of issues to support based upon where they can have the greatest and most sustainable impact. We believe more and more restaurants will embrace “socially-aligned business initiatives.” These are long-term, multidimensional strategies in which a business commits to a key issue not only to drive social change, but also because the issue they stand for aligns with their business objectives and values.

So, what do you stand for?

Some of the relationships RCSâ„¢ has helped clients establish included:

• The Make-A-Wish Foundation
• The North Carolina Children’s Home Societ
• The Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation
• The Children’s Miracle Network

· …and dozens of other local and regional charities and causes nationwide.

2007 Cause Evolution Survey

More than two-thirds of Americans say they consider a company’s business practices when deciding what to buy, according to the 2007 Cone Cause Evolution Survey. The latest study in Cone’s 14 years of Cause Branding and corporate responsibility research indicates an evolution in consumer thinking about the ways businesses interact with society.

Download the 2007 Cause Evolution Survey (PDF, 828 KB)

2004 Corporate Citizenship Study

Operators who want to connect their values with community efforts can look at the latest findings of an 11-year research poll for a solution. The 2004 Cone Corporate Citizenship Study shows that eight in 10 Americans say that corporate support of causes wins their trust in that company, a 21 percent increase since 1997.

Download the 2004 Cone Corporate Citizenship Exec Summary (PDF, 295 KB)

For more information on how Cause Marketing can help you, call us toll free for a free consultation 877.535.2324 or email me at Jeffrey at Restaurant Coaching Solutions dot com.

RCSâ„¢ is itself partnered with the Susan G. Komen For The Cure Foundation and donates a percentage of all its sales to this extremely personal and worthy effort.

Popularity: 19% [?]

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Is Your Restaurant Really Different…or Do You Just THINK It Is?

By Kevin Levi

Can you honestly say that your restaurant stands above the rest (in your area or culinary specialty)? In your heart of hearts you likely believe this is the case, but how can you be sure? I mean, how well do you really know the competition? continue

Popularity: 18% [?]

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Maybe The Best Promotion Ever For Independents

New York does it. So do Philadelphia, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.

Now, so will Cleveland.

The city’s first Cleveland Restaurant Week debuts Sunday, Feb. 24 and will run through March 1. Consumers, and downtown’s economy, could be the winners. The goal: Offer lower-priced meals and parking to lure more people downtown, with the hope they will come back again.

Read the story here.. 

Popularity: 37% [?]

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What Advantage Does OpenTable Give You?

OpenTable is a tool that only gives you an advantage in a market that has a high demand for tables like large metropolitan areas (too many butts wanting to sit in too few seats) and only among competitors that offer a much better experience for the guest.

That advantage is ease of access. If my restaurant and yours offers an “A” level experience, I win if I can find a way for those guests who may be trying to decide which of us to patronize, to get a table in my restaurant with much less effort than yours. But then you become an OpenTable member also and that advantage is lost. We are now equal again in the minds of our guests. One of us must create an advantage over the other to gain more guests.

In smaller demographics, midsize and below, as well as small rural markets, it does no good to be a part of a crowd in which you get lost. You lose the ability to differentiate and therefore those resources would be best allocated to a more meaningful way of communicating to your guests. Too many seats and not enough butts.

The best advantage for having success is simple, offer a better experience and communicate the value of that experience more effectively to your target market than your competitors. It’s just not easy.

Popularity: 37% [?]

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More About The Rise of Social Media and Why You Can’t Afford To Ignore It

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Popularity: 26% [?]

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Does MySpace And Sites Like It Work?

[slideshare id=31905&doc=can-social-networking-build-your-brand-19915&w=425]

Popularity: 10% [?]

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Time To Revist This One!

[slideshare id=28886&doc=the-brand-gap-14630&w=425]

Popularity: 7% [?]

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How Top Hospitality Professionals Increase Profits!

Success as an Independent Restaurant Owner or Operator has never been more challenging, due to increasing competition and higher demands to meet business objectives.

Personal pressures are equally daunting. Long, stress-filled hours at work can strain commitments to family and health.

If you feel a little overwhelmed, you’re not alone. Merely projecting a veneer of confidence isn’t an option. So what can you do?

The best kept secret to success revealed by successful business professionals

Despite demanding circumstances some Hospitality professionals achieve results that others don’t, no matter how hard they try. What is their secret?

Two words: Business Coaching.

Top Hospitality professionals understand and appreciate the value of hiring an experienced and objective guide to reach the next milestone of success - someone to help them make the connection to what matters most to them in the heat of the moment - someone with the skills and experience needed to enhance their own performance.

But despite business coaching’s proven track record of success, some people resist using a coach themselves. Their resistance or skepticism is often rooted in misconceptions about what business coaching is all about. The most common myths I hear about coaching include:

• Coaching is for people who cant do it alone
• Coaching will make me appear inadequate to my peers or team
• Coaching is a punitive measure for under-performers
• Coaching is too much like counseling
• Coaching is time-consuming
• Coaching is expensive

While these are all valid concerns, this report will reveal that business coaching remains one of the biggest secrets of successful business people. The Return on Investment (ROI) from hiring a coach warrants serious consideration.

Coaching yields average ROI between 500-600%

A recent study on the impact of executive coaching by Manchester Inc. concluded the average ROI on coaching was 5.7 times the investment made. That factor alone could result in over $100,000 according to those who estimated the monetary value.

Key business benefits attributed to coaching in this study included:

• Improved productivity (reported by 53%)
• Enhanced quality (48%)
• Superior organizational strength (48%)
• Streamlined customer service (39%)
• Reduced customer complaints (34%)
• Increased executive retention - those who received coaching (32%)
• Reduced operational costs (23%)

Executives also reported intangible improvements in:

• Working relationships with direct reports (77%)
• Working relationships with immediate supervisors (71%)
• Teamwork (67%)
• Working relationships with peers (63%)
• Job satisfaction (61%)
• Conflict reduction (52%)
• Organizational commitment (44%)
• Working relationships with clients (37%)

The improvement to business profits as a result of coaching was reported at a whopping 22%. What would a 22% improvement in net profit mean to you and your organization this year? That’s the bottom line for many in the event and meeting planning business.

How coaching enhances clarity, capabilities and confidence

A business coach brings three important things to the relationship:

1. Tools
The broad business experience of a coach enables them to bring realistic methods for creating solutions, strategies, and goals. These tools provide just in time learning in a business landscape that changes quickly.

2. Structure
Coaching is a very action-oriented process. Together, both coach and professional uncover the action steps that will move the professional forward towards their goals. But it is the professional who will perform almost all of the steps themselves.

3. Support
Coaching provides you with knowledgeable support and encouragement and a new way of looking at things when you, a professional, need it.

Imagine a place where unbelievable achievement is the norm. This is where the hearts and minds of some event and meeting professionals are. Whether you have a specific issue you need to resolve or a goal that seems unattainable, coaching creates a clear connection between where you are today and where you want to be.

Why not invest in the business tool that’s been proven to deliver a dramatic ROI for you, your company, and your personal satisfaction. What’s holding you back? Isnt it time you found out?

Popularity: 11% [?]

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How Good (Or Bad) Do You Think 2008 Will Be For You?

The NRA came out with their report on how they think 2008 will shape up according to the data from current economic trends - you can read it here.

I don’t read reports like these (my good friends at Claritas sent it to me asking me to talk about it here) because they are simply reports on how the average business will perform. I don’t believe in being average and neither do my clients! Which is probably why they experience greater increases in sales, profits and guest counts than their market’s competition.

So the question becomes what have you planned on doing different in order to make 2008 a much better year for you, your business and your people? That’s why we created the Strategic Positioning Seminar that’s coming up in January. We have found through our work with our clients over the past year, that strategic positioning is of growing critical importance if owner’s are going to take charge of their businesses instead of allowing circumstances to dictate success or failure

The difference is whether or not you will allow reports like these, with their focus on the average, to be the guidepost for your standard of execution for the upcoming year (and probably your epitaph) or will you decide to finally take charge of your business and begin to think more strategically about creating your own success.

Popularity: 18% [?]

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Seinfeld On Marketing? Hmmmmm.

Consider Bill Gammell’s e-book worthwhile and fun reading!

Popularity: 9% [?]

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