Market To The Security Concerns Of Corporations

Corporations can get catering from lots of places, but they worry about more than just the menu when selecting a caterer. They worry about food-borne illnesses, outside contractors getting injured while they are on their property, industrial spying and even terrorism.

In order to demonstrate your awareness of these corporate concerns you need to make buyers aware that you understand and agree with their concerns:

·       During your conversation, or written into your bid, inform the buyer about your Action Plan For Eliminating Food-borne Illness. Don’t think that this is talking negative. Salmonella and other problems associated with incorrect use of raw materials or handling of food is common knowledge and is definitely on the mind of corporate buyers who don’t want to lose their workforce to an illness they could have eliminated. Put a section on the Safe Temperature Zone right into your bid for all to read. If you are the only caterer that offers such information, then you will probably gain an advantage over the competition.

·      Add the fact that your event staff are covered by Workman’s Compensation laws because they are employees of your company and not independent contractors to all your sales presentations or written bids. Explain that if event staff get hurt at the event, the host is covered by a limit of liability from injuries; independent contractors are not.

·      Make your shoppers realize that you know and have checked out references on the event staff that will be working at the event. This is important if the company shopping for an event is concerned about having strangers or unaccounted for people inside their operations.

·      Issue standard format photo identification cards to all your event staff. Show one of these IDs to your corporate buyers and tell them that your staff wears these during events to insure that no one sneaks into the event that shouldn’t be there. Seems strange the first time you think about this, but it really is a big thing to many corporations. Kinkos is an inexpensive source for photo IDs.

Extra Tip #1: Corporations are used to seeing their vendors in uniforms such as the UPS or FedEx driver. Your delivery people should have and wear uniforms when they do their jobs. It is the professional thing to do—and they often give the first impression of your company that a client or guest sees.

Extra Tip #2: Paper Direct (paperdirect.com) sells blank door hangers, like the ones hotels use that say “Do Not Disturb.” You can run them through your printers to personalize them. Place your logo on them and explain to your corporate buyers that your staff is trained to never enter any door that has one hanging on the doorknob. Your corporate buyers will love this once they realize that they are the ones who select the doorknobs.