Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] So oftentimes, when we talk about marketing, we can't help but talk about SEO and email and social media and all of the external channels available to us, right? All of the things we do to reach out into the world and pull diners into our restaurant. And all of those things are important. But there's also something called four walls marketing. Literally the marketing we do within the four walls of our property. Right? They are very much connected to to our operations. And that's what I want to talk about on today's episode. In fact, five stupid, simple four walls marketing tactics that will cost you almost nothing. That will have a profound impact on both your top line and your bottom line. All of that on today's episode of Restaurant Strategy.
[00:00:43] There's an old saying that goes something like this. You'll only find three kinds of people in the world. Those who see, those who will never see, and those who can see when shown.
[00:00:53] This is Restaurant Strategy, a podcast with answers for anyone who's looking.
[00:01:14] Hey everyone, thanks for tuning in. My name is Chip Close. I am your host here of the Restaurant Strategy podcast. We put out two episodes every single week. Monday's focus on operations. Thursdays focus on marketing. Because there are two sides of any successful restaurant business. The operations are interested in managing the profitability. And I believe that marketing has to do with growth. How do we get more people in the front door? How do we increase the frequency of visits? In case you don't know me, I wrote a book. It's called the Restaurant Marketing Mindset. I give talks all over the country. I'm the founder of the P3 mastermind. It's a group coaching program specifically geared towards independent restaurant owners to help them increase the profitability of their restaurants. I also have a membership site. This has been going on for about two and a half years. And I'm just talking about number more deliberate way now because I know how, I know how productive and constructive it can be. It's $97 a month, but you guys can get access to it free for a month. Here's the deal. You go in there, there are dozens and dozens of online videos. There's a resource bundle with templates, spreadsheets, workbooks, ebooks, all of that. We put out these playbooks. So they're a bunch of like mini courses, mini videos, literally meant to teach. One little idea, one snippet, one tactic, one script. You watch them, you teach them to your staff. I know this program, this site works. It's called Restaurant Foundations. You get it free for the first month. And then at the end you cancel. You cancel whenever you want. Obviously. I hope you stick around because we do ask me anything sessions every month where you get to log on to zoom and ask me whatever you want to ask me. We do masterclasses. There's a lot of great reasons to be a part of the community, but there's no other better reason than right now. Through the end of the year, we're offering a free free month just for you to come in and check it out. You're going to find that link in the show notes.
[00:03:00] What's the food cost for your third best selling entree? You don't know. With Margin Edge you could know instantly. Margin Edge is a complete restaurant management software that I like to recommend to all of the P3 members, all the clients I work with. Why? Because it helps them improve profitability. With Margin Edge you just get to snap pictures of your invoices as they come in and you get real time data in every area of your business. You can see play costs in real time. You get daily panels. Your inventory count sheets are automatically updated. It saves you a ton of time and lets you make informed decisions. So I got a client, P3 member, gather brewing down outside of San Antonio. They started using Margin Edge a month after they joined my program and within one month of them bringing on Margin Edge, their food costs went from 38% to 28%. It was incredible savings. That's 10 points that drop straight to the bottom line. There's a reason I recommend Margin Edge to so many of the P3 members. It's because I know it works. If you're interested in learning more or you want to see how Gather brewing went from 38% to 28% food costs, head over to Marginedge.com chip. There's an incredible video there that talks about their story, talks about their journey with the platform. Again, Marginedge.com chip see a really great see a really great story about the folks at Gather Brewing. Great. Go do that now. Of course that link is in the show notes.
[00:04:27] Okay, so we're talking about marketing, but specifically today we're going to talk about five four walls marketing tactics. Five simple things. You can do that. If you are not doing these right, I would urge you to just even pick one of them this week and put them into practice. Right off the bat, we're going to talk about a better. Hello. So one of the things I used to do years ago, so I used to run the front door of, I don't know, maybe a decade of my Life was spent as a mat in New York City. So working for fine dining. And yeah, I get it. You're going to sit here and say, well, that doesn't work for me. I promise you it will and it can. I want you to get better at hellos. By that I mean, in order to illustrate this, I'm going to tell you a story. So I would work at a restaurant, and I'd be at the front door, and somebody would walk in. They say, hi, do you have a table for two? And what happens most of the time? This certainly happens to me most of the time when I go out. And I'm sure it happens to you most of the time when you go out. And I'm guessing this happens in your restaurant as well. Somebody walks in, they say, hey, can. Can I have a table for two? And what do you do? You say, yeah, sure, no problem. Follow me right this way. And you pick up your menus at the wine list, and you walk into the din room and you show them to a table, and that's great. That's what you should do. But what happens is we go, oh, my God, there's a customer. There are customers. We got more covers in the front door. But they came in and asked if you have a table for two. They've already made the decision.
[00:05:39] One of the things I did now again in fine dining, but I promise you, it works even for casual dining. When somebody comes in and says, hey, do you have a table for two? You can say, and this is what I used to say. I used to say, yeah, absolutely. I think we can do that. My name's Chip. What's your name? And they would say, my name's John. I say, john what? They said, john Smith. Said John Smith. That's great. And already I'm at the computer and I'm typing in their name. I said, are you already in our system? And they're gonna say one of two things. They're gonna say, oh, I should be. I've been here before. We love this place. Or they say, I don't think so. This is my first time coming here. Right? Either way, you learn something very important about them. But now you got a first name and a last name, and you say, what's the phone number? Let me see. And they're going to give you their number, 917555. And they're gonna go on, and you type it in. And one of two things happen. Either now you've identified the customer who's standing in front of you, and you Say, oh yeah, I see. Yeah, you come here quite a bit. It's nice to be able to put a face with a name or a name with a face. And if they're not in the system now, they are bonus points if you could say, cool. And what about your email list? This way you'll get the email confirmations, you know, if you, if you ever make a reservation, you in the future, which by the way, you should, I'm going to give you my card.
[00:06:48] Just something as simple as saying instead of, do you have a table for two? And saying, yeah, follow me right this way. You stop and you say, yeah, I think we can do that. My name's Chip. What's your name? And from there a meaningful, real human conversation takes place. I promise you, every once in a while, people won't want to give you their name. Fine, you say, no problem, follow me. I'll show you into the dining room. And then you're back to your plan A. But most people want to be acknowledged, want to be recognized. They want to connect with other human beings. I think we can get better at hellos and I think that's one key way to do it. Now, if you are running a restaurant with a wait list and you were still doing it by clipboard with a piece of paper, I would strongly urge you to stop that. I would move to a digital component simply because on a busy Sunday brunch where you got 200 covers coming in to put their name on the wait list, right, that's 50, 60, 70 names. You can be actually capturing people's data so that you can remarket to them later, which simply means I can email them, I can text them, I can call them later, I can stay top of mind and remind them of why they fell in love with me in the first place, why they decided to come in and eat in the first place. So I think we can get better at that. First beat that. Hello.
[00:07:59] The next one I want to talk about is bounce backs for first timers, right? So first time diners represent one of the biggest opportunities we have in our restaurant. There's some data that says 76% of all first time diners will never return to a given restaurant. And I think partially that's because, oh, they're traveling, they're tourists, they're not going to be back to this town for fine. But I think there's plenty of people who are in this market who would come back and simply don't come back because they have never been invited and they haven't been Given a reason to come back. So one of the things I like to do is you identify the first timers, right? That's probably the server doing that. That's a server action, as I call it, Right? Hi, how you doing? My name's Chip. I'll be taking care of you. Have you dined with us before? Who has dined with us before? And the people who have never been here before will identify themselves. Then you say, cool, great. You're in great hands. I'm going to point out some of our signatures. I'll point out some of my favorites. I'm so glad to be taking care of you today. And you go on the steps of service. And then the server would step away, go tell the manager, say, hey, my four top of table 12. They've never been here before. And then the manager would come over at some point during the meal. You find the appropriate time and introduces himself. Right. And here we try to get more meaningful interactions between managers and tables. Not just that hollow table touch, but we get the manager walking over and say, hi, I'm so sorry to interrupt. I just wanted to introduce myself. My name is Chip. I'm one of the managers here. And I understand that it's your first time here.
[00:09:20] And then a meaningful conversation spills out from there. And what it's driving to is the manager leaving a business card, a postcard, a poker chip, whatever it is, it's a bounce back. It's something that says, well, listen, I don't want to keep you, I don't want to keep you from your conversation, but I did want to introduce myself and I wanted to leave you with this. This gives you $10 off your next visit. Anytime in the next 30 days, bring this back, no questions asked. I'm giving each of you one. You can't use them together, but you can come back four more times because now you've got four of them. And be sure to call me. I wrote my name and my number on the back. You can text me or my name and my email address. Let me know when you're coming in. I'll make sure we've got a table for you. You're in good hands. I'll step back later to make sure you're enjoying everything. Right?
[00:10:09] What you did is you identified the first timers and you gave them a reason to come back the next thing, right? The third four walls tactic is a way to get more Google reviews. So Google Reviews, Yelp reviews, TripAdvisor, whatever is the most important platform for you.
[00:10:25] You inject that name in there, for me, it's Google. I think Google is the name of the game. At least right now it is the most important platform available to us. And so what I would strongly urge you to do is have your servers look, not have your servers try to get Google reviews. I don't think that works. I think that works in the opposite direction. It feels mechanical. It feels like something we're ask.
[00:10:46] And not everyone had a great time. I don't want everyone to leave me a review. I only want the rave reviews to be perfectly honest. So what happens is you have your servers on the lookout for the tables that are loving the experience.
[00:10:57] And then you have the server go tell the manager again, trying to get more meaningful interactions between managers and tables. You have the server go over to the manager and say, hey, table 12, right? Those are those first timers. They are actually having an amazing time. They are loving everything that we bring to them.
[00:11:12] So then the manager goes over and says, hi, I just wanted to stop back. I understand you guys are having a great time. It looks like you're, you're loving everything. Is that right? Did you guys enjoy everything tonight? And hopefully they're gushing, they're going, oh my God, this was great. And that was great. And we had that bottle of wine and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like that's amazing, right?
[00:11:30] And then they say, well, listen, I love that you had such a great time. Would you do me a favor? Google Reviews, Trip Review, TripAdvisor reviews, Yelp reviews really help our small business. If you wouldn't mind taking two minutes, really quickly scan this QR code and you give them a postcard with the Google logo and your logo on the one side with a QR code that takes them to your Google page. On the other side, it's your logo, the Yelp logo. And then a QR code that takes them to your Yelp page. And you say, if you wouldn't mind just taking two minutes and leaving us a five star review, add your pictures, literally. I don't want you to tell, I don't want you to say anything. You didn't just tell me. You seem to have a great time. Just let everybody else know why you loved it here. Right? That's the third thing I want to talk talk about. I think that will help. And all you need is one or two every single day. If you could get 30 five star reviews every single day, I promise you it'll start pushing those one star reviews out. It will, it will overtake the one star reviews. It's huge. The fourth thing I want to share with you, right?
[00:12:28] Get to know them better. I think we know a lot about some of our guests. I think we know virtually nothing about the majority of our guests. And some of our guests are introverts. They're quiet. They want to keep to themselves. They don't want to engage. I got that. I get that. But I think we can do a better job of engaging, of just being human with people. This is something I learned from one of my clients who did this in a quick service capacity, right? They would look for it, he said, a really easy way. If I say, I need you to engage with every single guest, suddenly you're trying to think, well, how would I begin a conversation?
[00:13:02] So sometimes, and this is like the little hack he gave me, and I pass along to the rest of my clients, and I pass along to you, he would look for, like, a baseball hat or a sports logo or a university or, like, vacation town on their sweatshirt, right? There's plenty of people have either a university, a college, a sports team, a town, you know, a vacation, you know, vacation location. And you just make conversations. You say, oh, usc, huh? You think the Trojans are gonna be any good this year, right? Do you think Trojans can turn it around? Here, at the midway point, you make conversation, right? You say, usc. Did you. Are you a USC alum? Or do you have kids that go there, right? You start a conversation, right? Man, heartbreaking about the Mariners this year, right? Like, you can make conversation. You don't have to know a lot in order to make a little bit of a conversation. You go over and you use that to engage, right? The idea is, if I told you, you've got to have a meaningful connection with at least five tables every single night, Meaning get their phone numbers, get their contact information, what would you need to say? How would you begin those conversations? And I promise you, you can do it. And then the second part of this challenge is you actually text them the next day, so you make a meaningful part of, you know, meaningful conversation, and then the next day or two days later, you text them back, right? So what do you think? Do you think the Blue Jays are going to pull off the World Series? And then when the Blue Jays fall to the Dodgers in seven games, two days after that, you say, hey, I was thinking about you the other night. Man, what an amazing game. And I'm sorry for your heartbreak. And they're going to write you back.
[00:14:32] Being a business owner, a restaurant owner, or restaurant manager is a lot like having A lot of friends. You get to throw a party every single night. And you are the center of the universe. If this feels like too much work, then you're gonna delegate this to your managers, right? If you don't have the bandwidth for this, fine. I get it. But I promise you, the more you do this, the more meaningful relationships you will build and the more meaningful your revenue and your profit will be. I promise you it works. The last thing I wanna say is the better goodbyes. I want you to scrub the following line from your vocabulary. This is the last chapter of my book, the Restaurant Marketing Mindset. Scrub the following line from your. From your vocabulary. Thanks so much. Have a great night.
[00:15:13] Don't say it. You don't mean it and it does nothing for you. It's a lazy way of saying goodbye and it's a polite way of saying goodbye. But I want you to really ask the question that you actually want to ask. The one that actually helps your business, which is, thanks so much. When are we going to see you again? Thanks so much. Can I go ahead and book another reservation for you? Thanks so much. Will we see you again next weekend? Let me book a table. Right. Actually go for the sale. In business, we make money not from showing people how polite we are, but from getting future sales. So when they were in there and they had a great time, you showed them a great time. Just get them back so you can show them another great time. That's it, guys. Those are the five four walls tactics that I know work will change your business. Number one, better hellos. Number two, bounce back for first timers. Third one is to get more Google reviews. The fourth one is to build more meaningful conversations by more meaningful interactions. The fifth one is get better at goodbye. Scrub that line. Thanks so much. Have a great night. You don't mean it, so don't say it. Actually ask the question that helps your business. Ask the question that you actually want to ask. That's it. Guys, I want to remind you before I let you go, about the Restaurant Foundation's program. It's a membership site. It's $97 a month, but you get your first month free. Obviously. I hope you stick around for a long time. There's lots of reasons to stick around. But even if you just come in for the free month and cancel, it's totally fine. You cancel whenever you want. That link is in the show notes. As always, I appreciate you guys being here. I know there's a lot of great shows you could listen to. Thank you very much. And I will see you next time.
