The Catering Software Corner Blog

How To Make It To The Top 2% Of Caterers

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I am so glad all of this talk of the top one percent has died down some.

Does anyone grow up wishing to be poor? Though money can’t buy you happiness, it sure opens up options…like being able to craft a quality of life that suits you.

Any time I have an early breakfast meeting that requires a shower and commute, I thank my lucky stars for my home office. I had one when I owned my restaurant. You get more done with a closed door policy.

This past Sunday, I attended a fundraising event for Our Kids, a Nashville based non-profit that helps sexually abused kids. Each year they hold a soup tasting event.

Fifty area restaurants donated soup and manpower for the sampling. If I could have physically consumed all of the samples, I would have consumed a hundred ounces of soup. This will now make it to my “must attend” list.

At twenty bucks a head, I’d have gladly paid double for the incredible soup produced by some of Nashville’s greatest chefs. My personal favorite was the apple, champagne brie soup topped with bacon bits and scallions. That is the best two ounces of food I’ve put in my mouth.

Half way through the hall, I developed Buddha belly. I didn’t stop, but slowed down greatly; sharing soup.

There were some great displays to go with the great soup, but only one out of the fifty restaurants knew how to market themselves. Yes. That equates to two percent.

Only one restaurant, located in a Marriott, bothered to market themselves. They held a drawing. All they wanted was your name and email address. When asked, the manager told me they were going to use the emails to send out a bounce back offer and promote their Easter buffet.

It takes so little to be better than everyone else, especially when marketing your catering.

Frankly, the independent has a huge advantage over the chains, because they can use results based marketing.

I meet with a lot of franchises and chains more interested in image and CYA, than results. For my new clients like Len Ruggiero who is hitting the ground running, this is great news. For those too lazy to do the basics, you’ll end up in the bottom 98%.

Please let me know when you want to be in the Top 2 Percent. I’m here to help you. In fact all of my previous blog articles and my free copy of Cater or Die! is chocked full of free ideas.

Now go sell some catering!   

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. For complete details and to grab one of the limited spots, please go to:

http://www.restaurantcateringsoftware.com/catering-planning-strategy-session

The “One Thing” You Must Have To Sell Catering

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Reflecting on my years growing up in Memphis, I can truly say, “I led a charmed life.”

It was probably the end of an era where kids roamed the neighborhood from sun up to sun down. My neighborhood was a throwback to Mayberry.

My mother would throw my brother and I out bright and early. The garden hose was our water fountain, but our neighborhood was better than any amusement park.

Whiffle ball, football, basketball, riding the dirt trails on our bikes, walkie-talkies, forts, tree houses, bream fishing in ponds and ten cent Cokes from the greenhouse so cold they were almost a Slurpee.

Many of my neighborhood friends are still my friends today. Not the ones you see in your day to day life, but the ones you are bonded to forever. Friends who you could call today at 3 am to bail you out of jail, even though you only talk a handful of times a year and live two hundred miles apart.

Yesterday I was honored to be called on by one of these friends, Michael Zellner, to be a pallbearer at his father’s funeral. Stanley Zellner was a saint in every sense of the word.

The shenanigans pulled in the Zellner home were legendary. Michael was inducted into the TP hall of fame. Many a nights he’d sneak out his window and roll houses. His handy work looked like Christmas morning to everyone but to his target.

Yes. Even our home made his hit list. Remind me to tell you the story of how my dad chased Michael and his friends down a dark road at break neck speeds in his car, wearing nothing but his underwear and a t-shirt.

I’m sure Stanley knew by the size of his toilet paper bill what Michael was up to, but he was too much of a teddy bear to do much more than let out an occasional growl.

During all of those years growing up with Michael and his sister Lisa, Stanley was nothing but a great, kind soul.

I think my friendship with Michael truly bonded in college over a mutual love for business.

Michael was one of the first people hired to bartend for Gentleman Bartenders, a college business my buddy Mark and I started. (I'm the one on the left).

He helped me run my Memphis in May parking lot and was the only friend to go in with me to sell hot dogs at that lot. I lost my shirt, but I learned a valuable lesson; sell where people are buying.

I vividly remember one Saturday at that lot Michael and I were sitting waiting for the crowds of cars to come. Michael pulled out a copy of the classifieds and asked me about an opportunity to sell knives for Cutco. They were guaranteeing $10 an hour.

I encouraged him, “What have you got to lose?”

His first six months or so he floundered, but then he found his groove, his calling if you will.

Back in the mid 80’s he was clearing a thousand dollars a week for twenty hours work.

This boy could sell. What he learned at Cutco has served him well throughout his life.

He believed in the product 1000%. They gave him a framework to sell anything, and Michael would be my first choice for a salesman. But I can’t afford him.

(Side Note: Cutco knives are incredible. Not only should you buy a set, but get your kid to sell them. Learning how to sell is more valuable to their career than a college degree or the money they’ll make).

Getting passionate about knives is difficult for a lot of people. Michael evangelized about those knives like a Southern preacher. And Cutco knives are incredible. I’ve owned a set since 1987, and they’re the best knives.

Above all else, you must have passion to sell your catering. If you don’t believe your food and service level are the best, what makes you think anyone else will.

Throughout my life, my “passionate” business pursuits have done the best.

Your customers and prospects will know instantly by the sound of your voice and the twinkle in your eye, whether they should work with you.

Obviously, it takes more than passion to sell catering. But without passion, you’re dead in the water.

You want an easy way to tell whether your passion level is high enough? Record yourself talking to a catering client or prospect. Would you buy catering from you?

If not, fix it.

BTW, if you need all of your incoming catering calls recorded, our software now has that capability. It’s an incredibly valuable tool for assessing and coaching your catering sales staff.

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. For complete details and to grab one of the limited spots, please go to:

http://www.restaurantcateringsoftware.com/catering-planning-strategy-session

Breakfast Catering Profits

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It’s impossible and detrimental to your catering profits to put all catering customers into one pile.

The catering client who calls you for box lunches may need a drop off buffet, a cocktail party for the holidays, an employee picnic in the summer, etc.

In the world of corporate catering, there are three primary catering opportunities; lunch, afternoon snack and breakfast.

More and more companies are opting to cater in breakfast meetings to cut costs or to be more efficient with people’s time. If you’re catering a breakfast meeting, you can get people to come in an hour early.

I attend a regular monthly breakfast meeting for my CEO Roundtable.

Most breakfast catering menus offer some type of egg dish/entrée and a meat…like bacon or sausage.

When it comes to our barnyard friends, the chicken is involved in the breakfast, but the pig is committed.

Are you a pig when it comes to catering? More specifically, are you committed to making your catering profit center a source of additional revenue?

The other day I was conducting a consulting demo call for a gentleman from outside Chicago. He told me he was very interested in building his catering sales. On a one-on-one consult demo I review catering menus and websites. I also walk each person through all of the steps needed to build a profitable catering business out of their restaurant.

It turns out this prospect really wanted to build his catering business, but did not want to invest $347 a month to have all the tools to do so.

He told me, “If the catering sales were there, I could pay it.”

Whether he works with me, recruits away a catering salesperson, hires an ad agency or employs a high priced consultant, there is always an investment to build a business…especially a new one.

Even if you choose to figure out yourself, there is still time and money to be invested.

I asked him how much it cost to get into his restaurant. He told me all in, just under 4 million dollars.

I’m a little confused. You invest 4 mill and have no idea whether your restaurant will succeed or not. Heck, if you picked a bad location, you’re stuck.

But investing $347 a month for a step by step system to build your catering business is a big deal? And no, I don’t think this guy was struggling to make this week’s payroll.

Profit comes after investment in the dictionary for a reason. We must all make investments to start and grow our businesses. A catering profit center does not happen in a vacuum.

I must chalk it up to being chicken. I don’t mean yellow bellied. I mean this guy only wanted to be “involved” in catering by talking about it.

My most successful clients are pigs! They are committed to catering, have a vision, burn their boats at the shore and never look back.

Like Sean. He became a client less than a month ago and hit the ground running. Anything he needs to work on, gets done quickly and well. He is always ready for the “what’s next”.

It’s this type of attitude that winners exhibit.

Are you a pig or a chicken?

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. For complete details and to grab one of the limited spots, please go to:

The Power of A Snapshot

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A snapshot is a moment frozen in time. When my daughter Jordyn and I put together a slide show for my parents’ 50^th anniversary party last year, we uncovered a bumper crop of pictures of me from birth to around five years old. After that, not so many.

Around that time, they had to keep up with my brother and my sister; a full time job for two parents.

I was never good at taking pictures until the iPhone. The picture quality is incredible, and it’s always ready to go.

Recently, Jordyn went out on her first real date to her high school’s homecoming dance. I offered up my home for a pre-dance dinner. Being the metro dad that I am, I helped Jordyn make cake pops. I even flat ironed her hair. And yes, I can sew a button.

As my kids get older, time accelerates. Yesterday I was teaching her to ride a bike and today, to drive a car.

All the planning was well worth it for the picture below.

Jordyn’s date was a nice young gentleman. By their picture together, I knew she could fend him off if need be. Considering parents were driving, I wasn’t too worried.

However, I decided to bring out my shotgun as a warning sign to all of the young men. (For those of you opposed to guns, I had a gun lock on it. There are no bullets in my home).

All of Jordyn’s friends had a great time at our home. Her heartfelt thank you text the next morning was worth all the work. I have bent over backwards to be the Kool Aid dad, and keep my home open.

As a kid, our home was the cyanide Kool Aid home. No one was welcome. My mom kicked me out at the crack of dawn, locked the door and allowed me all the hose water I could drink. As much as I wished differently, she actually did me a favor. My neighborhood was an incredible playground with tree houses, lakes, bike trails and adventures galore with my neighborhood friends.

My friend Jeff’s mom, Mrs. Lichterman, adopted me. She always had the cookie jar filled to the brim with my favorite, Oreos. 

A snapshot offers far more than memories on demand. In business, a snapshot gives you a glimpse into the past, present and future. Restaurant owners are bombarded with fires to fight. We are a bunch of ADD business owners needing the condensed report.

As I would tell my bookkeeper Brenda as she rambled on and on answering a simple question, “Brenda. Please don’t tell me how to build a clock. I just want to know what time it is.”

RCS has just created and launched a snapshot tool (see pic below).

This will allow our clients to slice, dice and analyze key bits of data quickly and easily. Any number crunching can be accomplished with a one click export to Excel.

If you’re a client, please know we never stop working to give you every tool possible to build catering sales and run a first class catering profit center built on processes, not personalities.

If you’re a future client and missed my webinar entitled:

Seven Steps To A Seven Figure Catering Profit Center

How To Build A Million Dollar Catering Profit Center In A Tough Economy

We are offering a replay link until Monday. We’ve had a lot of people who missed it. You can watch it on demand or at two time slots.

Register now at:

http://www2.onlinemeetingnow.com/register/?id=29d59a2ca5

Two of my clients shared some phenomenal information with all attendees…plus there was a special bonus gift for those who stayed to the end.

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. For complete details and to grab one of the limited spots, please go to:

http://www.restaurantcateringsoftware.com/catering-planning-strategy-session

How To Reverse Engineer Catering Success

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I have a great friend who will spend $5,000 on a new handbag. Fine clothes and accessories are her “thing”. My thing was, is and always will be food. There have been a couple of times I’ve spent close to $800 on a dinner for two. If anyone can get me into French Laundry, I’d pop the money to go there.

It’s the equivalent of buying Super Bowl tickets for me.

I appreciate and talk about food the same way an art collector gets excited about a Picasso.

Recently, I have started cataloging all of my recipes with an iPhone App called Recipe Box. This will allow me to always have my recipes in my back pocket, and I can email any recipe with a touch of a button.

Whenever I experience a dish worth making at home, I ask the server to get me the recipe. Most of the time, the chef will just share an overview of the recipe.

I then go home and try to make it myself. I must brag and tell you my reverse engineering success rate is fairly high. A few months ago, I made roasted cauliflower with a smoked pea truffle pesto.

There’s this great locally owned restaurant called The Tavern that serves a cold kale salad. They take the raw leaves, sans stems, and pulse it in the food processor. The kale is the consistency of sawdust. They then add in toasted slivered almonds, currants and parmesan cheese. They dress it with lemon juice and olive oil. It is fantastic. I usually order mine with a piece of grilled salmon.

Below is a pic of my reverse engineered recipe.

It was incredible and the leftovers were just as good.

How can you use reverse engineering to build your catering sales?

Years ago when starting out I realized success leaves clues. Niche marketing is the ultimate reverse engineering tactic.

I think the epiphany started in 1993. I remember getting a large drop-off catering on Black Friday from a large retailer at the mall. Being a dude, I had no idea what Black Friday was. I called the contact at the retailer and received an education.

This is what goes through my mind and the formula you should use to reverse engineer catering sales:

1. I just catered a ________ type of event for _____________. (Black Friday for a major retailer).
2. Are there other ___________ ordering caterings like this? (retailers)
3. If so, who do I target and when?
4. Create a marketing letter/strategy to get more catered events from this niche.

So in the example above, I figured out other retailers catered in meals for their hard working associates on Black Friday. I knew I could drive around each major mall/shopping center in Nashville and build my own list to target. This was pre-internet.

I surmised the decision maker was either the HR director of the store (department stores) or the store manager.

That first year I sent letters to 45 major retailers. (Copy of the letter at link to our members-only website below):

 http://www.restaurantprofitpoint.com/members/programs/fileinfo.cfm?ID=258&action=Display

I sent the letter out about a month before Black Friday, and then called each store to follow up. Yes. Some times I had to make multiple calls and was asked to follow up. Other times I was sent to an assistant manager or key admin.

I saw a large opportunity that took about $45 in mailing costs and some time on the phone…in the afternoon during my down time. Unless you are a one man hot dog cart, you have an hour each afternoon to unplug, leave your store and market.

The bottom line is $6,000 in drop-off catering sales for that Black Friday. I have had many other members use this strategy with success.

I used this reverse engineering strategy to get a ton of pharm rep business. Playing detective led me to discover there was a Middle Tennessee Pharm Reps Association. I sponsored their calendar. It had a listing of all the members. I sponsored a meeting and fed them all and gave them beer to drink.

They in turn indirectly contributed to my kids’ college fund.

Niches are everywhere. It is the low hanging fruit of building catering sales.

Does it take work? Does it require more energy than watching Family Guy? Yes and yes.

It beats the alternative…sitting, waiting for customers to grace your dining room with their presence.

There is no excuse in this country for not succeeding. Opportunities abound.

Will this blog article be a bitter tasting lemon or a tool to make lemonade…to sell to construction workers on a hot July day?

The ocean cares not whether you show up with a thimble or bucket to take it away.

Which will you use?

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. For complete details and to grab one of the limited spots, please go to:

Guaranteed Way To Fail With Catering

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As I get older, I am quickly realizing why people choose to winter in Florida. Though we have larger brains, birds are much smarter. They have enough sense to get out of the cold.

Last Saturday, the Nashville weather was perfect. No jacket required. Sunday, the rain gods pissed on our city. My calm, tranquil creek went from three feet wide to over twenty feet (see pic below).

A few months ago, the creek was that wide, and Jordyn and I looked outside and saw two nuts canoeing down the short term rapids. I wish I had been invited. It looked like a blast. But knowing my luck, I would have ended up on a future episode of 1001 Ways To Die.

My chosen method of death is not G rated, and I’d like to be 100.

Flash flood warnings were all over TV. A friend asked me if I was worried about the waters flooding into my home. Three years ago Nashville had a big flood that affected a ton of homes. Back then, the waters made it up to my driveway.

Based on my amateur meteorological assessment, we’d need at least two and a half more days of non-stop rain for me to load up a U-Haul and get out.

So, what may have caused others to panic, didn’t even cause me a second thought. Why? Experience.

I call it failing forward.

What is the #1 way guaranteed to cause failure in growing catering? Do nothing!

So often, people are paralyzed to make a decision. They are scared of not doing it right. Do they have enough time or money? I don’t want to spend the money…yet I have yet to pay myself a decent salary or enjoy a real vacation.

For Pete’s sake. Stop whining. Stop looking into the headlights of fear, doubt and uncertainty.

The fact is, this Monday night’s fr,ee webinar entitled:

The 7 Steps To A 7 Figure Catering Profit Center: How To Build A Million Dollar Catering Business In A Tough Economy is full of ideas that will cost you zero to implement.

(Details at www.FreeCateringWebinar.com )

If you make a bad move. Adjust. That’s the name of the business game. I fail daily. Actually, I call it learning lessons.

If your catering menu sucks. Adjust it. Get feedback from customers and tweak.

If a marketing piece bombs, try something else.

Catering is too important and too profitable to bury your head in the sand. If 2012 wasn’t your year, what will you do in 2013 to make it better?

And whining doesn’t count. As I have told my daughter many a times as she had crocodile tears running down her face, “Are you a winner or a whiner? Whiners never win and winners never whine!”

I don’t give a flip about what congress and the president do. I’ll figure out how to course correct when I need to. What I do know, is that people who get off their duffs and make things happen, have fewer problems.

If you’ve read this far, I’m betting you’re a winner, not a whiner. Please grab one of the 100 slots for my webinar this Monday…before a whiner does.

Register now!

www.FreeCateringWebinar.com

Looking forward to helping you build a more profitable 2013!

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. For complete details and to grab one of the limited spots, please go to:

Catering Super Bowl Parties

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This past Monday night was a big night for our family. Yet again, the University of Alabama won the National Championship! Roll Tide!!!

My son Jerrod is a HUGE Bama fan. He never misses a game. His grandfather, mother and uncle went to Alabama. I spent many a weekend partying in Tuscaloosa.

This week’s article could be about attitude, as Notre Dame’s coach should be fired for his comments at the half. To paraphrase, “The key is Alabama not showing up in the second half.”

As the head coach of your restaurant, some times you’re in a difficult position. Your job is to share a vision everyone can get behind.

Now back to Monday night. My friends Lisa and Rob threw a small game watching party for their Bama friendly friends. There was enough food for the twelve of us to eat for a week. With no time to cook, I ended up picking up a couple of pounds of peeled and deveined cocktail shrimp and tossing in some of my friend Rhonda’s homemade pesto sauce. It was a big hit.

As I looked across the kitchen island and saw a cornucopia of food, I thought to myself, “Imagine the catering opportunity tonight.”

Major games, like the upcoming Super Bowl, present an incredible opportunity for the marketers reading this to capitalize on. There will be a ton of parties. I’ve never shown up to a Super Bowl party without bringing a dish to share. Most guests do the same.

What I will tell you is that I can’t remember a restaurant I frequent, sending me even an email to let me know about their Super Bowl food options. This is one promotion when you should be targeting your catering and dining room database.

I want you to think about party packs and trays of your specialties. Jerrod and I love throwing down some wing drummettes at McDougal’s Chicken. I could have easily swung by their restaurant and picked up a tray of wings. Oh, that’s right. They don’t have me in their database. In fact, I never recall them having a way for me to sign up.

You have roughly three weeks to drum up some Super Bowl catering sales.

All it takes is a few well written emails to your lists educating them to your options. And don’t forget flyers, table tents and signs.

Let’s see if any of my Nashville clients will be “educating” me to their Super Bowl catering options.

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. For complete details and to grab one of the limited spots, please go to:

http://www.restaurantcateringsoftware.com/catering-planning-strategy-session

Catering Success Is Just A Word Choice Away

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Before I get into this blog article about words, let me tell you a word I perfected on New Year’s Day. Sausage. I have wanted to learn how to make my own sausage for a while.

I went to Williams Sonoma and bought a meat grinder and sausage stuffing attachment for my Kitchen Aid mixer. Thanks to a few You Tube videos, I cranked out some incredible pork sausages. At least that’s what everyone at the New Year’s Day party told me. (See pic below)

This weekend I’m going to make a batch of lamb and feta sausages.

Anyway…

What difference does a word make in the grand scheme of life? We teach our kids to say yes instead of yea. Maybe you believe that your kids should use “sir” and “mam” when answering their elders.

I once took a woman out on a second date. The first date was good, so I figured I’d take her out again to see how it would go.

While at dinner, I mentioned a local Greek diner featured on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. I talk about food and restaurants like Michelangelo paints. With excitement in her voice she said, “Wow. That sounds great. You need to take me there.”

At that moment, the proverbial nails hit my chalkboard. She could have said, “We need to go there” or “That sounds fun” or heaven forbid, “That sounds like a neat place. My treat.”

Anything but, “You need to take me there.”

She may have meant nothing by her choice of words, but I have become very astute on picking up on subtle clues.

I just wrapped up writing a new training manual for my clients called, “The Ultimate Telephone Training System For Catering Sales”. I have scoured through mystery shopping calls, training scripts and back newsletter articles to assemble over fifty scripts/concepts for you to use as a guide for better handling catering calls.

Let’s take a very simple question most of you ask a potential catering client, “How many people are you feeding?” It sounds harmless. Where I come from, you feed cats, dogs, cows and chickens.

Instead try, “How many guests are you taking care of?” This instantly lets the prospect know you are a little more professional than the average person.

What about the words you use on yourself, with your employees and family?

“No” “You can’t” “We can’t afford it” “I could never…” “I don’t have…”

If you say it enough, you start to believe it. Your mind is nothing more than the fanciest computer hard drive on the planet. What you say gets programmed into the subconscious grooves of your brain.

As we start 2013, I challenge you to change your self talk.

You are good enough, smart enough, pretty enough and damn it…people like you!

May the biggest problem you have this year be to make over $400,000 and pay extra taxes J

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. For complete details and to grab one of the limited spots, please go to:

http://www.restaurantcateringsoftware.com/catering-planning-strategy-session

The Six Dollar Catering Marketing Plan

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A few days ago I received an email from a long time member, Ivan. Ivan lives in a small town and was in my first high end coaching group investing $500 a month for membership.

As a long time student, Ivan is very familiar with my methodologies. What makes Ivan unique is not that he’s a marketing genius, but an implementation genius.

He never set out to reinvent the wheel. He’s been very happy to ride the marketing bike I’ve provided him. Truth be told, he wrote to tell me about his marketing bike on steroids.

There are two concepts that have been responsible for generating a lot of catering sales for me and my members.

Concept #1 is targeting The Top 100. By marketing to the hundred largest employers in your area, you are targeting potentially the hundred largest events in your town. At the least, the larger companies are always bringing in catering for various meetings and functions.

The Top 100 brought me in over $45,000 in catering sales within nine months of targeting.

Concept #2 is a concept I call the 3-Step Lead Generation System. It models the collection letter sequence by sending up to three letters to catering decision makers. We were able to book appointments with 20-40% of our targeted group. That is unheard of in any selling situation.

So Ivan emails to let me know he used the 3-Step Lead Generation System to target members of his Top 100 he wasn’t doing business with.

By marrying these two powerful marketing strategies, Ivan reported he picked up two large catering jobs. One company has 650 employees and the other has 300. It gets better. The HR director at the 300 person company turns on the HR director at another large employer (450 employees) to Ivan.

This third company will be growing to 1700 employees within two years.

Ivan knows how to make great food and take care of his clients. They stay with him.

By the way, Ivan reported the two Top 100 Companies he picked up cost only $6 to get (3 letters for each company at a dollar per letter).

So this friend is the Six Dollar Catering Marketing Plan. In fairness, you may as well calculate $3 per company multiplied by 100 companies equals a $300 total investment for this strategy. Not too bad even if you only pick up a 650, 300 and 450 person catering client.

2013 is just around the corner. It’s time to get serious about building your catering sales.

Hope you and yours have a happy, healthy and prosperous new year!

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. For complete details and to grab one of the limited spots, please go to:

http://www.restaurantcateringsoftware.com/catering-planning-strategy-session

Commanding Higher Catering Prices

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Yesterday I was conducting a catering consultation for a prospective client. I make about four of these sessions available each week for restaurant owners serious about growing their catering business. At no cost, I evaluate their catering menu, websites and give a handful of low cost, easily implementable ideas to grow catering sales.

What I see time and time again is most independent restaurant owners have a very limited advertising and marketing budget. When that is the case, I recommend taking 100% of your advertising budget and plough it into growing catering.

Catering sales are a much higher check average sale; you get “paid” to market your restaurant at each catering and a great catering client is worth thousands a year to your business. Dollar for dollar this strategy makes sense.

This particular prospective client and I were discussing his current strategy for acquiring new dining room customers. He mentioned Groupons and marriage mail offering a discount. He was thinking of sending out a free $10 gift card to folks in his trade area.

I pointed out that discounting attracts coupon crack addicts. They’ll show up for something free or heavily discounted, but most won’t convert into full price paying, loyal, repeat customers.

The comment he made was, “Everyone today expects a deal!”

Really? I spend over a thousand dollars a month in dining out. I don’t use coupons and none of my friends use coupons. Before you dismiss it to me or my friends being “rich”, let me assure you there is no correlation between my net worth and income. I pay myself enough to live and take care of my kids. The rest gets ploughed back into growing my company.

I believe you attract the customers you want. If I want to attract rats, I’ll use cheese as the bait. If I want to attract flies, I’ll put out dog $#!^.

Not every restaurant has to sell at low prices or coupon.

My favorite pizza place in the world is Antico in Atlanta. They just opened a location in Nashville called DeSano’s (they had to change the name for trade mark reasons). In two weeks, I’ve eaten there four times and turned on a lot of friends.

They are not cheap. I paid around $24 for a pie maybe the size of a medium with a few meats on it.

It was well worth every dollar. My buddies Gabelman and Rich agreed. You can see a picture and catch a video of me attempting to spin dough below. Don’t laugh too hard.

Why do they get top dollar and places like Little Caesar’s almost pay you to order from them? This secret will allow you to command more for your catering and dining room menu.

It all boils down to education.

The owner of Antico has done a great job of getting his story out. He went to Italy maybe five years ago to help rebuild the basilica where his grandparents married. While there, a family friend introduced him to someone in the pizza business. He learned how to make real Neapolitan pizza and brought it back to Atlanta.

He shipped over three, ten thousand pound, wood fired pizza ovens. He has dough machines from Italy that have spinning bowls, not turning dough hooks. He FedEx’s in buffalo mozzarella. He gets special bottled water brought in with his pH level specs. I could go on and on.

This guy has done such a great job educating me about why I should pay twenty-four bucks for a medium pizza, that I share his story with everyone. He has converted me from customer to evangelist.

His place in Nashville is in a terrible, hard to reach location and he was pretty full at nine last night.

If you want to command higher prices, you must be worth it. You must educate your customer to why you are more expensive. At Corky’s, only 2% of the ribs produced in America made our standard.

You may not appeal to everyone, but those of us willing to pay a premium price are more loyal and complain less.

Remember, you deserve the customers you have, because of how you market yourself.

I’ve personally found as RCS has raised prices and service offerings for a really great value, we’ve increased retention rates. We’ve also attracted clients more engaged in building their businesses.

For those of you who celebrate it…Merry Christmas!!!

For the rest of you, you might try Jewish Christmas; Chinese food and a movie!   

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. For complete details and to grab one of the limited spots, please go to:

http://www.restaurantcateringsoftware.com/catering-planning-strategy-session