Monitor Your Company’s Hospitality Commitment

Hospitality means different things to different buyers. Most foodservice professionals, when asked, will say they provide high hospitality levels to their clients. Yet, these same professionals probably couldn’t list the types of hospitality they are giving.

Hospitality is in everything you do with clients. It also is in everything that clients see, touch, hear and feel about your company. It just isn’t being “nice” to people. It is a total commitment from a your entire team towards anything and everything that touches the client and their guests.

Preplanning, discussions, checklists, procedures, scripts and rehearsal are all required to establish and continue a meaningful hospitality effort that affects your company in a positive manner. The answers to a few questions will help you understand what hospitality in catering involves:

·   Do prospects and clients get called back in a timely manner?

·   Does the staff look sharp from a buyer’s point of view?

·   Are the best people answering the phones?

·   Are valid qualification scripts being used, or are staff just winging it?

·   Do proposals get out in a timely manner?

·   Is helpful information being given to callers?

·   Do prospects feel that they are being “handled” or do they feel “loved”?

·   Are callers being talked “at” or are they listened to?

·   Is the team speaking proudly about the company at all times?

·   Is the facility clean?

·   Are clients receiving the exact same thank-you letter after their second event as they got after the first?

·   Do clients really feel that you are excited when they say, “yes” to buying?

·   Do all your clients get the same respect?

·   Do clients who buy more than others get more attention?

·   Do your best clients have a special or exclusive telephone number or other way to get in touch with you?

·   Are all thank-you letters typed or are some handwritten?

·   Do you take your best clients out to lunch?

·   Have you ever had a disagreement with a client or are you a “yes” seller?

·   What is company policy when “bad” letter, or call, is received from a client, do you hide it or discuss it openly?

·   Does the company have a procedure to turn over a shopper to another salesperson because the first salesperson wasn’t getting the proper responses?

·   Do individual team members get excited when a sale is made?

·   Are you promising less than you deliver?

·   How long does it take you to call a client after an event?

·   Do you keep asking your best buyers for their basic information each time they call, i.e address, phone, etc.?

COMING NEXT WEEK - THE MAIN POINTS PRESENTED BY ME IN MY CONFERENCE SESSION "THE 2012 ROMAN REPORT" - CHECK IT OUT ON MONDAY!!

Evaluate Potential Sales Before Booking Them

Being selective about which events you take and which you pass on assumes that you will not book every order that comes along. But most caterers can’t bear the thought of letting a job go to another caterer, which is where the problem arises.

You must think before saying “yes” to any event, no matter its size or type. This includes both full-service and drop-off catering. Sadly, most caterers believe that all orders are wonderful and that, in the end, everything will be fine. So they just keep booking orders while knowing in their hearts that some may not be right for the company. The assumption is that these unwise orders will be propped up by those orders that are correct.

A caterer may take an order that clearly shouldn’t be taken, simply because it gets the company’s catering “in the door” of a new customer. So, the thinking goes, the new customer will fall in love with their catering and buy more in the near future. Even if the order is improperly priced or too small in guest count or difficult to deliver, it’s still taken. Caterers often justify this by chalking the order up to “marketing.” Sometimes this kind of booking works just the way you hope, but in general it leads to erratic profitability and even to bankruptcy.

It is more important to book business that is properly priced than to book as many orders as you can. In no circumstance should the number of orders taken for a single day exceed the ability of a catering kitchen to produce them in a normal eight-hour shift. This eliminates any chance of overtime pay for the staff, which usually lowers whatever profitability is possible.

This statement is the basis of tremendous problems for caterers: “I need to keep taking orders even if they are not the best for us or my staff will leave me for lack of hours.” Yes, this might happen. If business is slow elsewhere as well, where are they going to go?

The question you have to ask yourself is: “Is my business a charitable organization or is it a business that needs to work for proper profitability?” When a caterer does a day with only a few orders, just to keep the staff busy, the caterer loses money from not having enough orders to cover the staff’s wages. In fact, when a caterer takes a few orders just to keep their staff busy, they usually lose more money than they would if they actually had their staff stay at home with a paid holiday.

Bonus Tip: Caterers make their profit based on all the orders that go through their kitchen on any given day. Often the actual profit in dollars on a day with only six orders ends up being more than a day that had nine orders. One or more of the three additional orders actually may have messed up the profit ratios for the day! Don’t take an order without first thinking about how it fits into the day with respect to pricing, size, delivery destination, degree of production and execution difficulties, overtime pay and who the actual client really is. Catering businesses go bankrupt not because of a bad year, but because of a few bad days.

Roman's Discussion Points!

Consider putting these concepts on the meeting agenda for discussions:

1. Rank your clients by importance, then put more time and concern into those at the top of the list.

2. Sell down to sell up by showing the client that you are not afraid to offer them menus that cost less as you show them your middle and higher priced ones. In other words, you just want them happy on their important day.

3. Ordinary salespeople let the buyer buy what they think they want.  Great salespeople sell the client what they “really” wish!

4. A great sales manager makes every selling situation a lesson!  Training must be ongoing and never ending.

5. When a shopper buys a camera, they take the camera with them and use it immediately. However, when someone buys a wedding, they don’t take it home with them. They need to wait a long time before seeing what they bought. This makes the sale a complex and more difficult one to make.

COMING NEXT WEEK - THE MAIN POINTS PRESENTED BY ME IN MY CONFERENCE SESSION "THE 2012 ROMAN REPORT" - CHECK IT OUT ON MONDAY!!

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.

Back And On The Move Again!

Good day everyone! Well, I'm back from our 20th Anniversary Catersource Conference & Tradeshow in what appears to be one piece! Now, I'm off to the airport to attend the GROWCO Inc. Magazine business growth conference in New Orleans. I promise to get back to normal on blog education and information starting tomorrow!


Stay well and I will fill you in on the conference happenings soon.


Mike

CATERSOURCE CONFERENCE!

HI EVERYONE -

I'M WORKING HARD AND HAVING FUN. BACK TO THE BLOG NEXT WEEK.

CHECK OUT MY NEW WEBSITE!

http://cateringguru.com/

Roman’s Opinion—What Does It Take?

Recently, I got an email from a man who asked a simple question “What does it take to start a successful catering business?” I said I needed the answers to five questions first: How old are you? How much working capital do you have? What is your family situation? What are your three favorite movies? What do you know about food?

Three days later, he emailed his answers. He’s 28, engaged with no children. He has $11,000 saved. His three favorite movies are: Caddyshack, Band of Brothers and Forrest Gump. He graduated from a two-year culinary school and has worked for other caterers for the last five years. With these answers, I could make some assumptions about his potential for success as a caterer.

Catering is mainly a young person’s career, especially if you want to be an owner/operator. As we all know, it is very hard work. My first assumption is that his age is an advantage in starting his own business. If he were 55, he could still be successful-but with a lot more back pain.

The fact that he is engaged is, in my view, a potential strike against him. Caterers may work 90-hour weeks. Personal time is a luxury. It is pretty much guaranteed that you’ll have to work weekends and holidays. Personal plans are often sabotaged by last-minute orders or event problems. My second assumption is that a caterer’s life could be a serious strain on his relationship with his fiancée.

The biggest cause of failure for a start-up business is undercapitalization, but catering is often forgiving on this because events are sold with deposits months ahead of the performance date. Most starting caterers find simple solutions to this and other problems created by a shortage of dollars. My third assumption is that he might be able to make it happen, even with his very limited capital.

His favorite movies tell me a great deal. Caddyshack means that he has a sense of humor, which is invaluable for a caterer. Band of Brothers means that he probably understands the concept of teamwork and loyalty. Forrest Gump means he is a fighter and not a quitter. My fourth assumption is that he has the frame of mind to be a success.

Graduating from a culinary school and working for other caterers should give him the culinary skills and discipline needed to talk-the-talk and walk-the-walk of a caterer. My fifth assumption is that he has a better culinary and catering foundation than many.

I emailed him a simple reply. “After reviewing your answers I feel that you have a better than average chance for success. If you can handle the hardships of long hours and the need to be creative with your money, then a career as a caterer might be possible. Please call me and we can discuss your next steps.” The only thing I didn’t tell him was that he won’t be seeing any new movies for a long time.

What would you have told him?

Job Description: Executive Chef/Kitchen Manager

Responsible for all food production including that used for restaurant, bar, catering and café. Develops menus, food purchase specifications and recipes. Supervises food production. Develops and monitors food and labor budget for kitchen staff. Checks in and monitors food and supply inventory. Maintains highest food quality and sanitation standards. Main function-To maintain a well run, cost effective kitchen.

Job Tasks

1.    Hires, trains, supervises & evaluates kitchen staff.

2.    Plans menus for all profit centers.

3.    Schedules and coordinates the work of chefs, cooks and other kitchen staff to assure that food preparation is economical and correct within budgeted labor cost goals.

4.    Approves the requisition of products and other necessary food purchases.

5.    Ensures that high standards of sanitation, cleanliness and safety are maintained throughout all kitchen areas at all times.

6.    Establishes controls to minimize waste and theft and maximize profits.

7.    Implements training of kitchen staff to increase their knowledge about safety, sanitation and accident prevention principles.

8.    Develops standard recipes and techniques for food preparation and presentation which assures consistency, high quality and minimal food costs. Exercises portion controls for all items served and assists in menu pricing.

9.    All recipes are to be written down and kept in recipe book. Pictures of presentation to be taken of all dishes and visible to cooks with portion sizes.

10. Projects weekly food and labor costs and monitors actual financial result. Takes corrective action as needed to assure financial goals are met.

11. Attends food, beverage and management staff meetings.

12. Consults with banquet manager about food production for special events.

13. Cooks or directly supervises the cooking of items requiring skilled preparation.

14. Evaluates food products to assure quality standards are met.

15. Plans and manages employee meal program.

16. Hires kitchen staff, evaluates job performance, corrects, rewards and disciplines staff in a fair and legal manner.

17. Puts procedures in place to assure a smooth running kitchen at all times. Makes sure these procedures are adhered to at all times.

18. Establishes and maintains a regular cleaning and maintance schedule for all kitchen areas and equipment.

19. Motivates and develops staff including cross training.

20. Periodically visits dining areas to welcome guests

21. Hosts taste panels to assess feasibility of proposed menu items.

22. Hosts cooking classes and demonstrations.

23. Alternates closing with the General Manager.