Every touchpoint a customer or prospect experiences is marketing. Some are major like a website, and some are minor like how the aprons look on your staff.

With close to ninety percent of communication being non-verbal, it’s important to take inventory of everything and anything that can persuade or influence a sale.

Recently I had the pleasure of being interviewed for the latest episode of Forktales, the popular restaurant, beverage and hospitality industry podcast.

Though I know a thing or two about sales and marketing, I have always been a later adopter of social media. 

There is a stigma around selling. When I say “Natural born salesman”, what comes to mind?

Since I was a child, I have always considered myself lazy. Today the politically correct term would be “efficient”.

Leonard Bernstein once said, “To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan, and not quite enough time.”

Never having quite enough time feels like a prerequisite for owning a catering business. Something always comes up to throw you a curveball. All we can ever do is roll with the punches.

The one thing we do have control over is the plan.

“Perfection is the enemy of progress.”
- Sir Winston Churchill

This quote by Churchill is one of my favorites. It probably should be inscribed on my headstone.

My life philosophy has been, “Why put in six hours for the A, when you can put in one hour for the B?”

True entrepreneurs are a special breed. We live in a ready, fire, aim realm.

I am guessing at least once in your life…

At the beginning of a fight that was about to start…

You were told…

“Choose your words wisely!”

That is great advice to prevent a drag-out or a night on the couch with a flimsy blanket and Netflix playing in the background.

But what I am talking about is choosing your selling words wisely. Whether you are crafting a script for calls, cold calling, your drive-thru window or how your phone is answered, a well-crafted script can be worth tens of thousands of dollars to you.

According to Wikipedia, "The Times They Are a-Changin'" is a song written by Bob Dylan and released as the title track of his 1964 album of the same name. Dylan wrote the song as a deliberate attempt to create an anthem of change for the time. 

Since I was born in 1965, I have seen and experienced more change in our country, culture and planet; probably exponentially more than in any other 56-year time span in the history of the world.

I may not have always felt comfortable with change, but I feel I have had an open mind and heart.

Do you remember the first camera you ever owned? For me, it was a Kodak 110; the kind that took cartridges. I think it was a Bar Mitzvah gift.

At the time, I probably thought I was quite the photographer snapping up pictures in the neighborhood or on a family vacation. But because I had to spring for the film processing, I recall my future as a professional photographer was short-lived.