Tag: Point-of-Sale-Merchandising-Agent-Pune

Manufacturers: How powerful is your product?

 
Small businesses usually don’t have time to keep up with everything that’s going on in the factory let alone what’s going on outside your four walls. But every once in awhile, it pays to sit back and evaluate where you stand in the overall market. How well-known is your brand?

If you can answer “yes” to the following statements, your brand has clout:

·         Our product is unique

·         We face fewer than three direct competitors

·         Customers of our product are not price-sensitive

·         We have a larger installed base of users than any of our direct competitors

·         Our quality is measurably better than that of our competitors in the eyes of our customers

·         Customers insist on our brand when they are purchasing

·         Customers will purchase only though a wholesaler-distributor that stocks our brand

A brand is a powerful tool  in a competitive marketplace—don’t overlook yours.

Turn a One Night Stand into a Special Occassion

Food Factoid: Catering, if executed well is a profit center for restaurants that can seldom be equaled by serving plate after plate of appetizer, entrée, salad or dessert. The reasons are simple- food costs are already established- waste is already accounted for- and with the exception of one uncontrollable glitch or another- seldom does a well planned event, executed perfectly not turn a sizeable profit for staff and management.
 

Yes, catering is any positive cash flow looking accountant’s perennial friend. Once the reputation of great catering and private party perfection is established it becomes a regular line item that directly filters a profit to the bottom line.

That’s why I can’t understand why so many restaurants fill the position of catering director with people who have little customer service experience, lack style and do not have the least inkling of what it takes to turn a catering event into a memorable occasion.

The lyrics of Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen frame most catering events: This is no one night stand, it’s a real occasion. That’s how the customer sees it. And, that’s how they want to remember it.

I recently had an event catered at a well known San Francisco restaurant over this past weekend. The event, a complimentary lunch for national auto dealer’s who converged on the city for the annual NADA convention, was near the Moscone Center and was billed as a complimentary lunch for clients and convention attendees. The buffet luncheon was held on Saturday, Sunday and again today was one of the company’s premier yearly marketing platforms. However, the customer service leading up to the event from the eatery’s representative left a lot to be desired and it should have been a tip-off to what was to come.

Arriving ten minutes before the event was to begin the buffet table wasn’t completely set, the food was still being prepared and a half an hour into the lunch the desserts were still not presented on the table. When this was brought up to the catering director she claimed the desserts always come out later. She maintained she had being doing her job for 25 years and didn’t really need any advice on how to present a table.

I really didn’t want to discuss the director’s portfolio of experience as in my world, the restaurant world, the customer is always right. (There have been a few exceptions to that philosophy but that is for another column.)

The moral to the story is simple- put a little extra into every catering event. If the customer has a problem, fix it. At forty-bucks a head for lunch, style should be included.

And for all of us who don’t have 25 years in the business- thank god- I will offer some sure fire catering tips tomorrow to turn a one night stand into a real occasion.