Pricing From The Buyer’s Point Of View

·   Buyers always want lower prices.

·   Buyers want prices to be lowered when requested.

·   Buyers believe that salespeople always lead and work to sell the highest price.

·   Buyers often will play one caterer’s prices against another to gain advantages.

·   Buyers believe that $30 chicken is the same as $15 chicken.

·   Buyers hate wasting time during shopping—with the possible exception of brides.

Chefs Are The Heartbeat Of A Catering Company

NOTE: As my first official post of 2012 I purposely have selected "chefs" as my topic of choice. Most chefs are under appreciated to say the least. Here is my feeling about catering chefs:

The men and women who work in catering kitchens are the most dedicated foodservice professionals I have ever met. Chefs are the “atoms” of a kitchen—and catering chefs face more challenges than any other type of chef.

When it comes to numbers, more chefs, by far, work in restaurant kitchens than catering kitchens. So, let me demonstrate my belief in the superiority of catering chefs: Restaurant kitchens have order when it comes to starting and closing hours and the menu items they need to prepare. Except for daily menu specials, the menu is a piece of cake because it is limited and the possibilities are known. A restaurant chef knows when he or she will leave work to go home.

The start and end of a day in a catering kitchen is random at best; it all depends on what has been sold for that day. There is no order or repetition to the menus, since most caterers customize what they sell to fit a particular customer’s needs and wishes. If there are fifteen menus to prepare over a weekend, the chances are that each will be completely different from all the others. The catering chef doesn’t know what time he or she will be able to head home.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if a catering chef, like a restaurant chef, could simply say: “The chicken entree is now 86,” meaning that the servers should tell any customer who wishes to order the chicken that the last order has already been sold and please select something else. I can just see a catering server telling a guest “Sorry, we’re out of that selection.” It wouldn’t happen. This situation causes a catering chef nightmares and requires making sure there’s additional food to cover the whims of guests.

Can you imagine a server coming back into the kitchen and telling a restaurant chef that a customer wants more green beans? No way—at least not without paying for them. A catering chef can’t rely on exact specific food amounts for each guest at an event, especially with buffets. The catering chef needs to worry about what guests take instead of what they are offered to eat.

Imagine a restaurant chef learning that a customer doesn’t want to pay the price printed on the menu. The customer says the menu price is too high and offers to pay $2 less. If the restaurant is not amenable to this negotiation, the customer will simply leave and go to a different restaurant. This kind of price negotiation is an ongoing part of being a caterer, which can make it difficult for a catering chef to keep control of food cost percentages.

A restaurant chef can depend on the fixed number of seats in the dining room to help maintain a manageable prep and cooking schedule for the day. The restaurant chef isn’t faced with 60 unannounced guests appearing at the door and demanding food. In catering, a client may call in a panic two hours before the event to tell the caterer there will be an extra 60 guests—and the caterer has to start the ovens again.

Catering chefs are simply amazing. They turn crisis into calm. They sacrifice personal time in favor of a happier customer. They prepare food that is creative and that will work in difficult venues. They stand for hours without the luxury of breaks. They maintain sanity with a sense of humor. Every day of every year should be National Catering Chef Day.

Shrimp Glorious Shrimp!

I'm a sucker for shrimp! The larger the better. Went to Rivers Casino for an early dinner on New Year's Eve with Bernice and got a wonderful surprise with the ice carving below that was filled with shrimp. If you study the photo you will see that the shrimp are loaded from the top of the ice carving and dispensed "self-service" at the bottom of the ice carving.

These "grab-n-go" colossal prawns were a great way to end 2011! Wish you could have been there to share them with us!


Have a super successful, safe and healthy 2012!

Discussion Points For Professional Salespeople

If you are a salesperson please discuss the points below with yourself and others. The outcome of your discussions will have a positive impact on your selling results.

1. Selling needs to be make an impact on the prospect. 


2. A salesperson needs to be “generous” in their sharing and conversation.

3. There is always tension over doing something new.

4. Selling is an ongoing dynamic process.

5. In selling there are pauses and stillness – don’t miss them.

Major Different Between On and Off-Premise Catering

Most buyers think more about space and starting and stopping times than food when dealing with an on-premise caterer. They want the best or prime ballroom in the facility and they want to be able to gain access to the room at a certain time. These buyers are comparing carpets, lighting, heating, cooling and parking more than menus when assessing caterers. Buyers approach the off-premise caterer from a completely different point of view, putting total focus squarely on the menu since the client, not the caterer, is the one who determines the location and event times.

Roman's Thoughts On Staffing Your Business

Caterers spend a lot of money on staffing. How that money is spent or invested determines both the overall success of the operation and the profitability of the company. It is not by chance that leading catering companies have more passionate and dedicated staff than those that seem always to be struggling.

There isn’t a magic formula to finding the best staff possible. In catering, more often than not, it is a matter of letting the cream rise to the top. Management needs to recognize examples of shinning talent in their staffing ranks before they leave for other jobs.

Caterers tend to over-staff their company right from the start. Sometimes it’s not that the company has too many staff, but that they have too many staff in the wrong areas. The amount of office, kitchen and other full-time staff must reflect your company’s sales results because the company pays all its bills from the efforts of the sales team.

When possible, caterers need to move toward using more part-time staff and outside services. There is a growing industry of services that replace the need for a caterer to maintain as many full-time staff as they currently have. The plethora of labor-saving, ready-to-use menu items and recipe ingredients can save huge dollars. Outsourcing training and cleaning also can help your bottom line through dollars saved on payroll taxes and benefits.

ROMAN'S HOLIDAY RUSH THOUGHTS 2011

ONE (1) DAY TO GO ... hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah!

• Never have so few done so much for so many! Think about how much you produced in your kitchen and how many events you handled... you are amazing!

• If you are already home, take a moment and call some of your fellow team members to thank them for all they did to make the 2011 holiday rush so successful.

• Don't fret - it's only 366 days to Christmas 2012 (don't forget leap year) 

Have a healthy and safe holiday!

Mike

ROMAN'S HOLIDAY RUSH THOUGHTS 2011

TWO (2) DAYS TO GO... is it really possible?

• Doesn't feel like a Friday? 

• Why are so many staffers smiling?

• Call ten of your best clients and wish them a happy holiday.

ª Treat yourself to lunch if possible.