I guess the highest form of flattery is when your former competitor invites you to speak to a room full of his franchisees, and you piss him off. That’s exactly what happened yesterday here inNashville.
Bar-B-Cutie is an institution inNashvillesince 1950. Ronnie and Brett McFarland, the father and son team behind Bar-B-Cutie, are the second and third generation to run the company, expanding via franchising.
They have been using our catering software for quite some time.
They had a franchise meeting yesterday, and asked me to come out and share some words of marketing and talk about how our system could help their franchisees. (NOTE: They could have easily done it, but smart companies bring in experts. Kids, spouses, employees and franchisees always pay more attention and give more credibility to an expert).
I showed up at their meeting early to have lunch with the attendees and listen to some of the other presenters. Brett’s wife, Christie is their VP of Marketing. She was showcasing some great new training videos they had just produced for their franchisees.
During the Q&A, the topic of how to treat kids eating at the restaurant came up. I mentioned one of my all time best promotions to bring in new customers was our “Great Student Certificate” program. For less than three hundred dollars a year, we were able to print up these certificates and distribute them to thirteen elementary schools within our trade area.
They were designed to be used as a recognition tool for the teachers with a free kids meal from Corky’s as the prize.
If your kid comes home from school with a certificate for doing a great job with a free meal to my restaurant, I know where you’ll be eating soon. In fact, we developed a program to capture the kid’s info and market to them every month. Getting kids hooked on your restaurant will cause them to be lifelong fans and return into their adult years…if nothing else but to share the nostalgia with their kids and grandkids.
That’s how institutions are made.
Any way…as I was telling the story of the Great Student Certificate, Ronnie McFarland pipes up, “All my kids brought those damn things home all of the time. It pissed me off!”
Now, he said it with no hard feelings, but I personally can imagine what it’d feel like to have your kid bring home a competitors promotion.
I must admit, for a minute I did have a sense of pride.
Ronnie and I were always friendly competitors, and I have a lot of respect for his organization: more so after attending their meeting.
But the type A, driver in me, loves to piss a competitor off.
It’s time for you to drop your wimpy advertising and marketing and start using the type of high return, low cost marketing we teach to build your catering and dining room sales…and piss off your competition!
To get a copy of the Great Student Certificate, please go to this link:
http://www.restaurantprofitpoint.com/members/department79.cfm
I know many of the Bar-B-Cutie folks read my blog. Thanks gain for having me out. Looking forward to more years of working together. Sorry I couldn’t make it to Margaritaville for the beer. I’ll take a rain check.
Well That’s All For This Issue!
Michael Attias
Restaurant Catering Software
P.S. – Want to spend Monday night together? Plan on attending my webinar, The Seven Habits of High Earning Restaurant Caterers. Details and registration: www.FreeCateringWebinar.com
P.P.S. – If you need to help growing catering sales, then please go to www.RestaurantCateringSoftware.com and download my free eBook: Cater or Die!
P.P.P.S. – I make a limited number of time slots available each week for a free Catering Strategy Session with me. For complete details and to grab one of the limited spots, please go to:http://www.restaurantcateringsoftware.com/catering-planning-strategy-session
