Restaurant Consulting NYC | Can You Hear Me Now? Ensuring your Brand Message is Heard | 4Q Consulting, LLC

Can You Hear Me Now?

Ensuring your Brand Message is Heard

Often when we review a new client’s existing marketing and branding, we find an unclear and confused message.  In order for any marketing to be successful, it must find continuity and fluidity across all platforms; the message must be Clear, Concise, Consistent and Communicable.  If customers can easily understand who you are, it clears one obstacle in improving your top line sales. Remember, a customer’s experience with your restaurant starts long before they walk in the door. 

Here are four basics to consider in ensuring customers hear your brand message: 

Know who you are.  The reality of your restaurant has to meet the expectations you are putting out in your marketing.  As we discussed in Restaurants Know Thyself, you can't be all things to all people.  Know who you are, embrace it, and include it in all of your marketing. If you run a Mediterranean restaurant in name, design and decor, you should not have an Irish Pub menu.  Remember, marketing your brand is not just about paid advertising, it also includes items such as menus, signage, uniforms, and scripted server approaches at the table.

Be Consistent. 4Q preaches consistency a lot, in all aspects of restaurant operations. You’d be surprised how many times we see inconsistencies in basic information – such as hours of operation and menus – in different places where a restaurant promotes itself.  Are the hours of operation on your door the same as on the printed take out menu?  Are they the same on your website, Facebook Page, Google listing, online ordering portals, etc.? Additionally, does all of your media reflect a consistent message and communicate who you are (see above)?  If customers don’t get consistent information and messaging about your restaurant, they will become confused, get frustrated and turn elsewhere to restaurants that care to get it right. 

Get your message online and keep it in line. Restaurants don’t always embrace their digital strategy in this day and age of 24/7 connectedness.  Before the Internet, restaurant marketing was static: it consisted mainly of newspaper, magazine, radio, TV and the yellow pages ads.   Today, marketing a brand message has become dynamic.  There is so much noise out there in the digital/social media world with paid ads, social media pages, customer reviews, etc. that  vie for customers’ attention. You have to actively manage your image with a consistent message by:  producing and posting relevant content that draws new customers and keeps existing customers engaged; responding properly to complaints in a public setting; answering questions; and utilizing “Calls-to-Action”.   Keeping a clear, focused message in all your online interactions, can help you stand out in all this digital noise.

Teach the message.  Employees are your walking, living, breathing billboards inside and outside of your restaurant; but are they putting out “The Message”?   You must inject a clear, concise, and consistent message into your employees, and hold them accountable to communicating it.  If your message is that you are a farm-to-table restaurant, your employees must be able to explain that to any and all customers and potential customers. Additionally, as we discussed in Employees are Your First Customers, “In social situations, often the first question asked is ‘What do you do?’ or ‘Where do you work?’”  Each time your employee answers that question, is an opportunity to communicate your message.

Small or large, independent or chain, no restaurant can ignore how their marketing message is heard. Certain advertising campaigns still resonate in our culture, and are long remembered because they are clear, concise, consistent and communicable – you can still sing that 30 year old jingle.  All of the pieces noted in this blog must work together in concert:  like a choir everyone must be singing the same song, in the same key, or the audience will leave!

Don’t know where to begin?  Do you know how to put policies and procedures in place to be as successful as possible?  www.4qconsult.com can develop customized operational guidelines to meet your needs. 

All original content copyright Noelle E. Ifshin, 2015-2016. 

Noelle E. Ifshin, 
President, 4Q Consulting, LLC 
noelle@4qconsult.com  
www.4qconsult.com 
244 5th Avenue, Suite 1430, NY, NY 10001  
(212) 340-1137

Restaurant Consulting NYC | Seven Deadly Restaurant Sins | 4Q Consulting, LLC

Seven Deadly Restaurant Sins

Owning and running a successful, profitable restaurant is never easy.  When you break down restaurant business concepts into their lowest common denominator, you are left with the “3 P’s” - Product, People, and Process.  What is served, who serves it and how it is served should tell the customer the story of who you are and what your brand is.

The Seven Deadly Restaurant Sins are behaviors that get in the way or prevent you from properly executing the “3 P’s”.  The sins, if ingrained in your restaurant, can become barriers to change, growth and success.  

Think of the sins as “land mines” which must be avoided in order to be successful:

Greed – Greed can often get you into trouble as a business operator.  In a free market economy an operator wants to be as profitable as possible.  However, operators must also financially take care of their employees by offering them a fair wage, and their customers by providing excellent customer service and a product at a price the market will bear.  We have all read about famous restauranteurs who are sued for various reasons:  violating wage and hour laws; not distributing tips properly; underpaying illegal immigrant staff; price gouging tourists; adding gratuities to checks subjectively.  The cost of this greed, in the form of PR headaches, legal fees and loss of business is almost always greater than the few extra dollars you can collect. 

Gluttony – Gluttony is nearly synonymous with greed and is defined as “one given habitually to greedy and voracious [behaviors]; withholding from the needy”.  In business, gluttony can be very destructive; it is not knowing when enough is enough and profiting to the detriment of others.  Your business is a citizen of the community in which is exists; it is important to have a program that gives back to the community or to your employees. In larger companies, these types of programs can help attract top employee talent.  For small businesses, an out-reach program does not have to be expensive - simple, easy and workable are often best.  Try donating leftover food to community kitchens, or left over raw scraps to a company that makes mulch for a community garden; volunteer time for a local cause; sponsor the local little league team.  Involve your employees and get ideas from them about what is important them.  You will be seen as a good corporate citizen, which will pay you back in positive PR.

Pride – Pride is a double edged sword in the restaurant business.  Pride in your product and staff can be very useful to help you stand out in a crowded field, however pride can also act as a hindrance to improving your business.   Pride can prevent you from being able to: recognize when you are on the wrong track; change course in time to prevent a financial downfall; react to factors in the economy – such as rising food and commodity prices.  If you always look with a critical eye, you will always find ways to improve.

Sloth – Sloth is defined in Merriam-Webster’s dictionary as “reluctance to work or make an effort; laziness”.  Laziness in any business is the kiss of death, but especially in the restaurant industry.  Once laziness sets in, standards start to slip, corners get cut and consistency of product and service becomes non-existent.  The antidote to sloth is vigilance of even the smallest details.  It’s the little things you decide to ignore that add up, causing your standards to decline.  As we discussed in Consistency is King, “Customers should not have to spin the roulette wheel each time they visit your restaurant; they should experience the same quality of food and service every time.”

Wrath – Wrath is great anger that expresses itself in a desire to punish someone. Operators who yell, belittle and antagonize employees or customers won’t be open very long.  In today’s world where anything can be posted on line and go ‘viral’ overnight, an operator must be the utmost professional and lead by example at all times.  Once you have a reputation as being wrathful towards your employees, it will be very hard to recruit and keep top talent.  Customers will avoid restaurants where the owner or manager has a reputation for yelling at guests.  Your restaurant wouldn’t exist if not for the employees and customers, who should be treated as the valuable components of your business that they are.  If something is wrong with your business, look at yourself first.  The old proverb rings true here – “A fish rots from the head”.

Envy – Envy is a feeling of discontent or covetousness with regard to another's advantages, successes, and or possessions. The sin of envy in a restaurant is to covet other restaurants, to worry about what others are doing and not to focus on running your own business.  It makes you take your eye off the ball in your own operation, which in turn, can cause your downfall.  Owners must focus on making their restaurants the best they can be, whatever they are – if you own a hot dog stand, make it the best hot dog stand you can without being distracted by what the owner of a five star restaurant across the street is doing (or wearing, or driving).  With focus, you will be much more successful.

Lust – Lust in business is often seen in conjunction with envy.  To lust is to crave or desire something, often what others have.  It can be a lust for power, money, or material objects and, like envy, can lead to unscrupulous behaviors.  Lust can lead to not reporting all your cash income, taking kickbacks from vendors, ordering personal items through the business, and not being honest with your partners and investors about the business’s finances. Besides some of these actions being illegal, these behaviors drain resources and break the trust of those who count on you, putting obstacles in the way of building the business to the level of success it could achieve.

What all these sins have in common is that falling prey to them is shortsighted and they get in the way of flawlessly executing the “3 P’s” - People, Product and Process.  The restaurant business is not brain surgery!  At a basic level, restaurants should be able to provide an excellent product at a fair price through superior customer service.  Avoiding the Seven Deadly Restaurant Sins puts you on the path to building a sustainable, profitable, long-term business.

Don’t know where to begin?  Ask yourself, do you have the proper procedures and operational guidelines in place to help you be as successful as possible?  4Q Consulting can develop customized operational guidelines and training programs to meet your needs. Email us today for a free business consultation at www.4qconsult.com.


All original content copyright Noelle E. Ifshin, 2015.
Noelle E. Ifshin, President
4Q Consulting, LLC
244 5th Avenue, Suite 1430, NY, NY 10001  
www.4qconsult.com

Restaurant Consulting, NYC | Why the Right Restaurant Culture is Crucial to your Success | 4Q Consulting, LLC

Why the Right Restaurant Culture is Crucial to your Success

Wherever people live or work together, a culture develops. This is defined as “the behaviors, beliefs, values, and symbols that [a group of people] accept, generally without thinking about them, and that are passed along by communication and imitation.”1   Restaurants, like any other business, engender “Organizational Culture” – a culture specific to that group, which describes everything from its approach to customer service to the shorthand jargon that develops among members.

Your organizational culture is crucial for delivering the right impression to your customers, and your customers get a taste of what your business is all about every time they interact with your staff (see: Employees are Your First Customers – Happy Employees Part 1).  It is important to carefully seed and nurture a culture that defines the restaurant’s priorities, but also allows for some traits to develop organically from your staff.   

In our blog 4 Reasons Why Your Restaurant Needs an Employee Handbook, we discussed the handbook as a central document to your business. It is where you should define and codify the values that make up your restaurant’s culture, which are imparted to employees during on-boarding, as well as the ongoing training sessions.

Here are four reasons why you need to create and promote the right culture in your restaurant:

Culture Encourages Professionalism – By communicating expected behaviors, actions and values to all employees, you define what your culture is and how they participate within it while in the workplace; By encouraging those behaviors, actions and values to meet your standards (whatever they may be), you create a “Culture of Professionalism”. Managers and supervisors must reinforce the culture and lead by example, not by the philosophy of “Do as I say, not as I do", as we discussed in Follow the Leader. They must live and breathe your mission and values and tend this culture of professionalism in your restaurant - complimenting positive behaviors and correcting negative ones.   

Restaurants, large and small, that promote a culture of professionalism, without being stodgy, have employees with high levels of loyalty toward the company.  This type of business culture increases productivity, work quality and employee retention.

Culture Reduces Employee Turnover – The restaurant industry is known for its high turnover rates. Generally speaking, many food and beverage industry employees aren't looking to make a career out of tending bar, waiting tables or seating restaurant patrons. However, employees with high job satisfaction tend to remain with their employers longer, thus reducing turnover. Studies have shown that a well-defined and actively maintained company culture is associated with high job satisfaction.  Businesses can lower turnover rates by fostering a culture that values open communication, provides adequate training, and rewards employees for a job well done. By retaining employees, companies save resources recruiting and training a constant flow of employees; they build a higher caliber workforce that positively affects product quality, lowers operating costs and increases the bottom line.

Culture Increases Consistency – By lowering your turnover rate of employees, your increasingly experienced staff becomes a well-oiled machine that improves consistency within your operation. In Consistency is King, we discussed that daily vigilance to the standards you set are crucial in order to ward off possible problems that can impact costs or revenues: poor communication, order errors, kitchen errors, bad customer experiences, etc. Creating a culture of “Being the Best” consistently also leads to and reinforces your “Culture of Professionalism”.

Culture Improves Your P&L – As we examined in Restaurants Know Thyself, when your culture is defined, your restaurant has a distinct identity.   A well-defined culture increases both your top-line sales and your bottom line profits. When you have less employee turnover, you have a professional, experienced staff that works well together that creates a more consistent product and less waste – which improves your operating costs.  You build a repeat clientele that comes back time and again to visit their favorite server and to eat their favorite dish.  A successful restaurant has return customers at the core of it business, because repeat customers will attract new business and word-of-mouth advertising is the most efficient way to grow top line sales. 

Creating and nurturing the right culture in your restaurant allows you to take care of your employees who will in turn take care of your guests.  As a business owner, it is your job to be sure that your team has the tools it needs: Strive to be the best boss to your staff; hire only the best employees (with the right attitude) and enable them to be awesome through excellent training, to give the best customer service; have the highest possible sanitation standards; buy only the freshest ingredients; offer the best food and the best service. Be mindful of being consistent in all these things so that customers have the same good experience time and time again.

As seen in Employees are your First Customers, happy employees are engaged, exceed expectations and become brand ambassadors for your restaurant.  Your restaurant will become a business people want to work for, vendors will want to do business with and the place where many want to eat – again and again.

Don’t know where to begin?  Ask yourself, do you have the proper written procedures and operational guidelines in place to be as successful as possible?  4Q Consulting can develop customized branding and marketing plans, and operational guidelines to meet your needs. Email us today for a free business consultation at www.4qconsult.com

All original content copyright Noelle E. Ifshin, 2014-2015. 

1. https://www.tamu.edu/faculty/choudhury/culture.html