Testimonials Make Sales... They Really Do!

What someone else says about the quality of a catering company is far more believable to a shopper than what the catering company says about itself. For most people, buying catering is a new and scary situation filled with high anxiety. Unlike restaurants, there are very few “rating” services on catering businesses for shoppers to gain confidence in a caterer’s quality or level of service before they buy. Many shoppers also are convinced that salespeople and marketing pitches are often unreliable.

Catering is a major purchase for most people or corporations. A lot of money is spent without any real assurance that the catering will be as it’s promised to be. This is why testimonials from previous users are extremely crucial for the success of any caterer especially when buyers fear making a mistake that they might regret.

Testimonials are important to shoppers because they gain confidence to buy and then are able to assess blame to others, either intellectually or really, if something goes wrong with the event by saying “One of the reasons I chose to use the caterer was because I read all the great comments and testimonials that their past customers sent them”.

Interesting isn’t it? Think about why you ask others for recommendations before you buy or don’t buy an expensive or important product or service i.e. doctors, dentists, autos, painters, and lawyers. We ask because we are in search of the good, bad or inside tips on the product or service we are seeking and to gain a safety net of being able to blame others.

Here are some ways to generate and use testimonials:

a. If prospects come to your office, you should have your walls flooded with framed letters and notes from happy clients. Take time to talk about these testimonials or take one down from the wall for the prospect to read before you start your sales presentation. Also, don’t be afraid to place testimonials you received via email on the wall for all to see.

b. If you use a large photo album with images of your past events for the prospects to view, don’t hesitate to place testimonials in this album in such a way that they will see them as prospects turn the pages in the photo album. In other words, don’t put them in a special section in the back of the album. Mix them in with the photos. Also, take time to talk about them in the same way as you do about the photos. Every testimonial has a story behind it.

c. Place testimonials throughout your website, not just in a special separate section. Intersperse them with the other content. If possible add a photo from the event the happy client is referring to and label it as such.

d. Create a “music on hold” message that actually has prerecorded testimonials from the actual happy clients. When prospects hear “Hi, my name is Bob Smith from Hanover Supply. ABC Catering did a fantastic job on our annual event. The food and service were super and they now cater all our functions. I highly recommend them”. You have just received a huge advantage over your competition.  By the way, everyone who caters always has a few clients who would just love to do this type of recording!

e. Create some YouTube testimonials and add the link to all your emails and from you website. This is a very cool and powerful concept.

Testimonials are your way to shout-out how great people think your catering is, while it giving shoppers confidence.

The Questions Shoppers Are Hesitant To Ask

There are certain questions that are on the mind of all buyers when they first approach a caterer. Shoppers tend to be reluctant to ask the salesperson the questions below because they are kind of “intense”. Imagine how you would feel if a friend asked, “Did you brush your teeth today?” The questions that many shoppers really want to ask, but are afraid or embarrassed to ask the salesperson include:

·   Is the food good?

·   Will the caterer let me participate in the planning?

·   Will they ask me difficult questions?

·   What does the staff look like? Are they honest? Will they steal something?

·   Will the caterer embarrass me?

·   How much extra food do they bring?

·   Have they ever run out of food?

·   Will they show up on time?

·   Is the kitchen where they make the food clean?

·   Has anyone gotten ill eating their food?

·   Will they still be in business on event day?

·   Who else has bought from them?

·   What are the things that might go wrong?

·   How will our place look after they leave?

·   What happens to my money if I need to cancel?

·   What will it cost me?

The more of these questions you answer for your shopper without them asking first, the greater your chance of a sale becomes. While they can be answered anytime during your time with the shopper, the sooner you answer them the better. The easiest way to begin the process is by saying, “Mr. and Mrs. Smith, please let me take a moment to answer some of the questions that by best clients have asked before using us for the first time.”

“I’m always asked about our kitchen and our level of professionalism. There is no question that our culinary team keeps the kitchen spotless. They follow all the established health department rules and exceed all sanitation requirements. Our kitchen is inspected by our city’s health department on an ongoing basis.”

Marketing: Buffet of Buffets

I find this Caesar's marketing promotion to be "brilliant" and creative... I really do.

Simply put - book a room at any of the eight (8) Harrah's properties in Las Vegas and you get TWO of what they call ALL DAY PASS which permits two people to eat at ANY of the Harrah's hotel buffets for breakfast, lunch and dinner as many times as you wish in a twenty-four hour period.

To be clear, you can book at the Imperial Palace for a published rate of $53 or Paris for $103 and go to any or all of the eight buffets in any of the hotels of your choice.

I do believe that the "in your face" creativity of this promotion will work. It is something that has never been done before and is probably something that most marketers wouldn't have the nerve to try.

One more very neat aspect to this marketing - they also are offering the ALL DAY PASS for $49.99 only if you don't wish to stay at one of their hotels. This establishes value in a big way. Many of our readers would happily eat at the Rio Buffet, Paris Buffet, or the Caesars Buffet with no problem. The $44.99 is the cost of one and a half buffets, so if one puts in two other meals the value is huge.

Rules For Your Marketing Program

1. You sell more catering when your marketing energy demonstrates to the buyer what the catering will do for them and their situation.

2. The marketing must overcome the false and true beliefs that they have about catering.

3. Catering marketing must take the risk out of decision making for the buyer!

4. Remember: Most people buy the most familiar brand.

5. Most people buy by simply choosing ... catering marketing needs to permit buyers to decide to buy from you rather than from the most familiar.

6. To keep a client loyal, your marketing must continually remind them that they are with the best already!

7. To take buyers from another caterer you need to give them a chance to use you just once... not forever!!

8. Effective catering marketing demonstrates the downside of the alternatives to catering.

9. Higher prices are not defended in catering marketing. They are explained by showing how they provide less disaster (or more success) over the competition's lower prices.

10. Catering marketing needs to show that in catering you get what you pay for!

It’s really quite simple, you can’t grow a company faster without quality marketing to new and past clients.

Hiring The "Right" Person

How do you, the owner or highly placed manager of a catering organization, know if a candidate you’re interviewing will be a positive, neutral or negative addition to the company culture? How will this person, if hired, react to your management style? Will the new hire add to the growth of your business, or crash and burn because of preexisting flaws, hidden agendas or incompatibile personality.

I recommend that catering companies of any size actively seek the answers to the above questions by hiring trained psychologists during the process of selecting new key staff for their companies. I think most owners agree that the normal hiring interview process doesn’t always give you answers to many important compatibility questions.

While consulting, I’ve seen that often the people in charge of hiring key staff are themselves flawed. When I say that they are flawed, I don’t mean that they aren’t fine managers and owners, just that they don’t have the kind of training that will help them identify which candidates are most likely to succeed on the job. When it comes to hiring managers or chefs, those doing the hiring need to realize that the number one reason for the failure of these new hires will be simple incompatibility between the new hire and the existing culture or beliefs of the company, staff and management.

Caterers have often told me that a new hire didn’t work out because the person just changed his or her attitudes once hired, or because the new employee just wouldn’t “fit in with the way I run my business.” I don’t believe these new employees changed—they had the same attitude all the time but the owner didn’t pick it up during the interview process. These kinds of attitudes lay hidden and need the skills of a trained psychologist to uncover.

Several of my consulting clients have increased their success in hiring winners by using a professional psychologist to do an interview with a key candidate before a final decision is made. The psychologist is able to probe deeper into the thinking and attitudes of the candidate, uncovering any incompatibilities that will adversely affect your business. Hiring a professional also takes a lot of pressure off the interviewer.

When it comes to hiring key catering leaders, getting the opinion of a psychologist helps pave the way for long-range success and growth. It just makes sense: Caterers should spend their time doing what they know best—not becoming their company’s Dr. Phil!

Selling: The Seven Second Delay

I sold real estate after leaving my school teaching job and before starting my catering career running our family catering business. One of the life-changing tactics I learned from a silver haired sales trainer was simply this: Not hearing what you are about to say to a prospect, before you say it, is the enemy of successful selling.

I was taught to "hear" what I was thinking of saying before I spoke the words. As I was listening to what I was going to say, I was supposed to really clearly challenge the usefulness and properness of the words I was about to launch. My trainer mentioned that many radio stations have a seven-second delay from the time a word is spoken to the time it is broadcast to the time it hit the ears of the listener. In this way, it was possible for a director or producer of the radio program to hit a button that would "kill" the words before they were past the point of no return.

When I train catering salespeople I always teach this concept. Now, teaching it and making it "stick" with the sales talent is more complicated than it might seem. This is an easy concept to understand but very hard to actual do, let alone master. My suggestion is to just try it and see how it feels and blends into your selling style. Good luck!

Script: Dealing with last minute menu changes.

I believe that the script below should be launched if the salesperson has a gut feeling that a customer may be the type to make last minute changes on their menu - I believe this script is something you should keep in the back of your mind ready to us if necessary.

“Often my customers ask me about changes in their event menus. While this is possible, it is important to remember that changes become more difficult the closer we get to the event date. Because we use freshly prepared foods, purchased from specialty suppliers, changes made within the (?) days before the event will have additional handling fees added.”

Six Axioms For Selling Success

Selling catering isn’t complicated. Here are some simple axioms that will assure success! Use them and your sales will soar! I suggest you discuss them at your next sales meeting.

1. Be enthusiastic at all times. Selling catering is a twenty-four hour a day job. You never know when, or where, a sale will be coming. You need to be “UP” twenty-four hours a day. Enthusiasm is contagious. If you offer it to your buyers, you will receive enthusiasm back from them. A salesperson who is enthusiastic also demonstrates confidence, professionalism and pride.

2. Never make excuses. During a sales slump don’t use these for excuses: “Our prices are too high.” “It’s the slow season.” “The chef isn’t creative enough”. “This is the third time this person has come to us for a bid without buying and I already know she won’t take us.” Excuses drain sales talent and create losers. To be a winner, you need to keep your mind clear of any negative thoughts.

3. Put the buyer first. Demonstrate to your buyer that the information you give will help them do a better event no matter who caterers it. Let them realize that they have finally met a salesperson who cares more for them and their event then they do for themselves. Remember, you are also selling “yourself” to the buyer as well as your catering. In fact, from the buyer’s point of view, since the caterer they select is going to become involved in their personal, or corporate goals it is great if they sense that the salesperson’s motives are based solely on their own goals and happiness.

4. Standout in the crowd. Be different in everything you do! Believe that you have no competition because no other caterer does as much for clients as you do. Do the unexpected. Demonstrate to your clients that you are looking forward to years of catering with them. Be unique in the way you dress, speak, write and care! Being unpredictable and different is often a valid strategy for selling more catering.

5. Take some risks. Yes, it’s “risky” to take risks. Playing safe, on the other hand, usually loses the important sales. Cut through the client’s concerns. Get right to the point. Ask questions that bring the issues out onto the table for discussion. Never make false promises, but never waiver from your “pledge” to your buyer of your total dedication to their success.

6. Keep learning and rehearsing. This is important. Surround yourself with quality books on selling techniques that are to be found at any bookstore. In order to attain greatness as a salesperson, you need to read about what other salespeople have done to get better. Then you need to actually rehearse your own sales scripts before you get in front of a real shopper. Learning and rehearsing are the cornerstones to catering sales success.

Neutralizing Stress

Stress is easy to excuse. Stress comes with leadership. Stress kills. All three of these statements are correct. And stress is everywhere for caterers. It’s hard to stay calm in the profession of catering. There are daily deadlines, the commitment that the show—the party—must go on, no matter what.

The biggest stress maker might be the caterer’s self-imposed requirement for perfection in everything they do. Caterers just can’t help themselves; they cater events to please themselves—not just the host or guests. A caterer is similar to an actor on the stage where everything is live and there are no retakes or do-overs.

Family, marriage and competitive forces constantly face caterers and create added stress. Caterers are often faced with choices between work and personal aspects of their life. Imagine being faced with the realization that you have a huge event on the same day as your child’s first play at school and you have to choose between the two. You’re going to have stress simply from the guilt you will feel about letting down either your customer or your family, depending on the choice you make. In my own career as a caterer, I missed many family occasions because I always chose the company first over my personal obligations. I was often stressed in anticipation of the guilt I was going to live with because I was a cateraholic.

My solution was a simple pill: Xanax. I carried them in a small vial on my keychain and used them as needed. Many caterers turn to activities like exercise, reading or massage to neutralize stress in their lives. I believe it’s the mere idea that they are doing something for themselves that leads to stress reduction.

In all my years in working with caterers, I have not found much alcohol use in the workplace. I’ve seen caterers who have become intoxicated on very special occasions, but I’ve never been aware of one who used alcohol to get through the workday. But I’m saddened by the number of caterers who resort to prescription drugs to neutralize the stress in their lives, just as I did, and I have known several caterers who resorted to illegal drugs to make it through some days.

The surest way to neutralize stress in catering is to say “no” instead of overbooking a date. Three overbooked days in a row are a killer! If you know the addition of a possible booking will take you into your stressful zone, pass on that booking.

While stress may be incurable, it can be neutralized when a caterer simply becomes aware of it and understands they have the ability to limit stress by limiting the amount of work they do. Caterers who take off at least one day a week have less stress than those who don’t.

A Solid Salesperson's Checklist

Check your own progress—and do it often—with the answers to these questions. If you answer “no” to any questions, there’s work for you to do to be more effective.

• Are you getting the sales volume you should?

• Do you know how many sales your company expects of you this year?

• Do you always talk to the right person when selling catering?

• Do you have a consistent and proven sales script for qualifying the caller?

• Do you spend too much time with clients who really can’t buy?

• Do you spend at least two days a week out of the office prospecting for customers?

• Do you know how much one of your work hours is worth in dollars?

• Have you set a three-year income goal for yourself?

• Have you read at least three books on selling in the last year?

• Do you keep your past sales figures handy so you can review them quickly?

• Have you spent time analyzing your competitors?

• Do you talk with other sales people or managers at your company about your sales efforts?

• Do you know what your closing average is?

It Helps When The Person Has The Power To Buy

Just because the customer is sitting in front of you, doesn’t mean he or she will be in charge of making decisions about this event. It’s important to understand what the customer’s expectations are, and how different parties involved with the event (family of the bride, the customer’s manager, etc.) will interact.

Questions like these can help:

“Who, besides you, is going to be involved in the decision of which caterer you use?”

“Who should I send a copy of the menus and other information to?” (This tips you

off to who else is important in the decision)

“What is your expectation on the time for me to get my information back to you?”

(If you hear the words, “There’s no rush,” pack up and leave).

Questions to Ask Yourself About Your Marketing

An effective marketing campaign needs information before, during and after its development and launch. Questions to ask and answer include:

a) What types of people purchase from my company already?

b) How do these buyers feel about our catering?

c) What are the steps buyers take to purchase from us?

d) How many different groups buy from us?

e) Am I aware of my competitor’s marketing?

f) Do we maintain a database of our buyers and update it continually?

g) What foods, styles of service and trends are really in?

h) What parts of the catering are expensive in the mind of the buyer?

i) What parts of my business are looked upon as “added value”?

j) Do I know what other caterers say about our catering?

k) Do I know the strengths and weaknesses of our kitchen?

l) Am I aware of past and present advertising and marketing statements?

m) Do I know the story behind the start of my company?

n) Do I really know how our food tastes?

o) Have I spent time talking to others about our products & services?

p) Do I really understand and know about my company’s product lines?

q) Do I understand what my company’s guarantee policy is?

Answer Phones... Please!

Last week I made calls to dozens of catering companies. In too many cases a human being didn't answer the phones when I called. I was given opportunities to leave a message because "Your call is very important to us". I really can't be sure, but I do believe that by not having a human answering the phones during business hours a company misses enough new business opportunities that missses 10% of possible new business.

It may cost more money to have someone there to answer the phones, but it will more than pay for itself. At least you should call your main competitors during business hours to see if they use technology or humans on their phones. If they all use technology then forget about the human response. Otherwise ...

Buy Catering From A Competitor

This is a very fun, educational, and eye-opening activity. The next time you need to provide catering for your staff, order the catering from one of your competitors. If you need food for a larger staff meeting, retreat, picnic, or holiday party, just figure out how to order your competitor’s catering without letting them know it is really you. This means you probably need to have the catering delivered to a different address than your own using a non-recognizable name.

Obviously, drop-off catering is simpler than full-serve catering. In either case, your team will think it very cool and informative to be able to taste and view their competitors catering in a real-world private situation. Bring your scales and cameras and have a fun time in your analysis.

Dreams Are Part Of the Success Equation

The dream of being a caterer and creating a successful business is alive and important for many people. But are all dreams worth pursuing? Recently I’ve had the pleasure of speaking with two people who have the catering dream uppermost in their minds. Their dreams are slightly different, but there are important common elements as well.

One, who just finished a two-year program at a prestigious culinary school, called to get some questions answered. Let’s call this dreamer “the rookie.” The other has owned an off-premise catering company for nine years. We’ll call this dreamer “the veteran.”

They are at different stages in the business lifecycle of catering: The rookie is facing the launch of a new business. The veteran is concerned about continued growth in an ongoing operation. Both are driven, motivated and energized by their dreams. They are filled with the promise of what will be.

What is interesting to me is that they are both completely confident of success; doubt doesn’t seem to be anywhere in their thinking. The rookie believes the dream of helping people do special events and celebrate their lives is reachable with passion and a little luck. The veteran is dreaming of building a banquet space and is convinced that not doing it would be the biggest mistake in the life of the business.

In neither case are these dreams backed up with the research that would provide information needed to make a correct decision on whether the dreams are valid business decisions or not. In fact, during my phone discussions with the rookie and the veteran, each time I suggested a possible hole in their thinking, they filled it in with the energy of their dreams. Visualizing a dream in your mind is not the same as creating and living it. The dream needs to be supported with solid thinking and discussion with your mentors and trusted friends.

The very nature of a caterer’s personality is to rush in and take charge or save the day. Most caterers never think of saying “no” to a potential booking. Perhaps this is why some caterers make decisions based solely on their dreams, without the mental footwork that needs to be done first.

Caterers should consider the word “maybe” before acting on their latest dream or idea. “Maybe” means you haven’t made a decision yet. This slows the process so you can take a little more time to do your research and make the best decision.

I’m not challenging anyone’s dreams; most successful companies are built on dreams. But just because something feels like a sure thing, doesn’t mean it is a sure thing. The definition for the word “business” in any dictionary doesn’t include “dreams.” Instead, you find words like “work,” “money,” “time,” “knowledge,” “expertise” and “marketplace.” These words aren’t dream crushers, they’re dream enablers: You need them to make a dream become reality.

Note: I’ve taken this directly from my newest book Secrets Of Catering Management. It’s a very cool book.

More Cool Scripts!

“I hope I’m not imposing on you, but could you answer a few questions for me so I can put together the best possible proposal?”

“I must be kind of slow today. Could you go over that one more time, please?”

“How will our catering help your company sell its products?”

“What would be your dream event?”

“Parties are very special events. How often do you throw a party?”