Parenting is a trial by fire experience. All the books and advice in the world can’t prepare you for the twists and turns kids throw at us. As much as we’d like to have a “one size fits all” formula for our kids, it just doesn’t work that way.
My son Jerrod and Jordyn are wonderful kids and great friends, but oh so different in their motivation. Jerrod is his own person and doesn’t really care about peer pressure. He is a cool, calm character who doesn’t respond to ego challenge. Not only does he march to his own drum, he’s figured out how to masterfully play it.
Jordyn is more of a people person and seeks approval from others. Though she is no pushover, she strives to be the best for other reasons.
Teaching her to ride a bike at five, she immediately fell and screamed bloody murder. I knew consoling and coddling her would not get her riding. I had to get her to put her big girl panties on. A little tough love is what it took.
“Are you a winner or a whiner?” I asked. “Winners never whine and whiners never win.”
She was determined to be a winner. Before long, head held high and with a large grin on her face, she was mastering the bike.
Jerrod on the other hand did not respond to threats, logic, emotion or bribes. He was hell bent that falling wasn’t an option, so riding a bike wasn’t in his master plan.
I taught him to teach himself how to ride. I put him on a smaller bike and asked he just practice pushing himself off and balancing the bike as it rolled. What started off as a two foot roll, became a ten foot roll. Once he mastered the feel and balance, I asked him to attempt peddling.
In less than an hour, he mastered the bike.
My members run the gamut in terms of sales experience. The one thing that separates the winners from the whiners is the ability to take consistent, correct action.
I make no secrets to the game plan for winning the catering sales game. In fact, it’s all laid out for free in my Cater or Die! book available at www.RestaurantCateringSoftware.com.
I have a fairly new member I met here in Nashville I met while speaking for a law firm.
Her new Chicago style pizza place is close to opening. Months before opening, she invested in our system and software. She has built a database of qualified catering prospects approaching four hundred.
She already has orders on the books and in our software.
I drove by her location yesterday and saw her and her husband in the building. She gave me a tour and told me about the progress. I asked her why she was experiencing such winning, while other members whine about lack of success. Here are a few things:
1. She’s been consistently making contacts and putting them into the RCS crm.
2. She’s using RCS to regularly stay top of mind with these prospects.
3. She “asks for the order”. Specifically, she asks the decision maker, “What events do you have coming up I can put together a proposal for you?” This causes them to think about specific events and results in new opportunities for her.
4. They invested a thousand bucks into a small hot dog cart and are selling Chicago dogs outside their soon to be open place. They are booking the hot dog cart for catering jobs.
How big is your database of qualified catering prospects? How often are you prospecting? Are you consistently asking about upcoming events?
This is not difficult. What’s difficult is struggling to make money. Even if your results are half as good, you’ll still be ahead of most.
If you want to become a catering sales winner and rid yourself of whining behaviors, then you need to make plans to attend my catering sales and marketing workshop May 5th in Baltimore with Frank D’Antona; long time member and truly a catering sales winner.
Go to www.CateringSeminars.com/Baltimore for complete details. We have a hard limit of 40. I expect this to get filled up.
Well That’s All For This Issue!
Michael Attias
Restaurant Catering Software
P.S. – If you need help growing catering sales, then please go to www.RestaurantCateringSoftware.com and download my free eBook: Cater or Die!
P.P.S. – I make a limited number of time slots available each week for a free Catering Strategy Session with me. (You also get a catering menu critique and free analysis of your website for “Catering Effectiveness”). For complete details and to grab one of the limited spots, please go to:
http://www.restaurantcateringsoftware.com/catering-planning-strategy-session
P.P.S. – Anyone wishing to reprint my articles may do so. Please email me for the bi-line to use for proper author’s credits.
