SALES VS. CULINARY... my opinion.

In the 1960s through the 1980s, when I was an active caterer in Chicago, catering was all about food. Buffet displays and plate-served dinners were done with traditional straightforward food presentation. The chef, who was often the owner of the company, was the leader and power player of the company.

The chef’s words and thoughts became the rules. Kitchens were kingdoms. The chef had the first and last word. Salespeople needed to get the chef’s permission for just about anything a customer wanted to do. Taste and function were the main goals of serving food. It was not much like today’s carefully designed and entertaining food presentations involving texture, action, color, height, exotic tableware and a plethora of buffet serving pieces and vessels. Before 1990, ideas for what to serve usually came from the chef. Today’s menus are influenced by a caterer’s culinary team, the Food Network, hospitality magazines, clients and a never-ending number of how-to entertaining books.

Today, customers usually come with their own vision of what and how they want to offer food and beverage to their guests. This has resulted in a major swing of influence in catering companies: Instead of selling chef-created ideas to clients, the sales team is bringing the clients’ ideas to the culinary team.

Culinary ideas come from both the culinary team and the sales staff, but since the salespeople speak first with shoppers, they are now more of a driving force than the chef. All parts of your company contribute to the overall success of your business, but the salespeople are the single most important element in the success. As the title of one of my books clearly states: If You Don’t Sell It, You Can’t Cook It.

The salesperson listens to the dreams and fears of the shopper, overcomes them with creative solutions and then makes the promises that turn shoppers into deposit-paying clients. There are always exceptions, but overall, today’s catering business needs to be salesdriven rather than culinary-driven.

I am in no way suggesting that the culinary team is unimportant or that the sales team is more important. In fact, the culinary team must have input into all culinary decisions. Culinary staff must have veto power over anything that may damage the company image or cause a sanitation breach.

Cold Calling Tips

Yes... these are very basic, but they are crucial!

1. Be a good listener

2. Take notes as you talk with your contact.

3. Stay on track.

4. Concentrate on what you say, how you say it and the tone of your voice.

5. Turn a negative response into a sales advantage.

6. Never apologize for calling.

7. Explain your offer in clear terms with WIIFM (what’s in it for me) to the buyer in the forefront.

8. Write a script or checklist to follow during the call.

9. Smile while you are speaking to the potential client; it comes across the phone line.

10. Record your side of the conversation so you can review it later.

Winning Power Phrases To Increase Your Sales 4

From the moment shoppers first call for information to the moment of their decision, let them hear you say, or let them read, a variety of the scripts below. These phrases are important because they highlight certain benefits you can offer.

One of the nice things about . . .

. . . our staff is . . .

. . . this room is . . .

. . . ABC Catering is . . .

My past clients have told me . . .

. . . that this particular menu was well received by their guests.

. . . that the valet parking option gave their event a great start.

. . . that the cheese course added Wow! to the party.

Many Salespeople Are Reluctant To Ask For The Order

One of the axioms of professional selling is that you are supposed to become a friend to the shopper. Salespeople spend great amounts of time endearing themselves to the shopper in order to get on their side and earn their trust. But friends don’t ask other friends for money.

After all this caring, is the salesperson supposed to stop being the shopper’s friend and instead ask for a deposit check? So, some shoppers never really hear from the salesperson an explanation of how their deposit policy works and then ask their "friend" for the sale. Winning salespeople avoid this trap and find a way to ask for and receive a deposit while still maintaining the friendship and trust of the shopper.

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Guest Article: Vivian Morgan - Culinary Art Catering - Farmers Branch, Texas

 I am a mom and caterer and if you are familiar with the book “If You Give A Pig A Pancake” you will understand my little “story” . It is based on the current wedding trends in our area (and from what I hear, also the wedding trend nationally for the past couple of years). It just seems to happen a little more here in the South.

Here goes:

If you give a bride some burlap

She will want to make table runners

When she makes all the table runners

She will want to add some centerpieces made of babies breath

When you bring her the babies breaths she will want mason jars to put it in

When she sees all the mason jars she will decide she wants to use them for her signature drink

When you create her signature drink she will want a paper straw to drink it with

Once you give her paper straws she will remember she needs a menu and will want something comforting and southern like fried chicken sliders and red skin mashed potatoes 

Once you plan the menu she will decide she needs mismatched plates to eat it on

Once you get the mismatched plates she will decide that she should rent an antique dresser to display them on

Once she rents the antique piece it will remind her of her grandma , which will make her melancholy

So she will decide that she should ask her grandma to help her make a quilt that everyone can sign in on

Once she has the quilt she will need something to display it on and will expect you to hang a clothesline and bring some colorful clothespins to hang it with

Once you have hug the quilt she will decide that everyone needs a chalkboard place card so they know which table to sit at - she will of course be too busy to written all of them and will kindly ask that you write all 200 of them in your best handwriting .... in chalk

Once the place cards are done she will ask you to help her to make some bow ties to tie the napkins with

And if she wants you to  make bow ties, chances are

She will want you to make them out of burlap.

Vivian can be reached at: vmorgan@culinaryartcatering.com

A Wonderfully Weird Staffing Idea From Roman

One caterer tells potential part-time event staff that there are two levels of pay when working at events. The first one pays $3 more per hour than the second one. For the higher pay, the worker agrees to do the hard stuff–carrying tables, lifting, stacking, etc. The less expensive pay rate is for those who identify themselves ahead of time as wanting the easier jobs of pouring water, scraping dirty dishes, etc. As this caterer explains it, “At events we need both people that go the extra mile and those that do less. In this method of two levels of pay at least the ones I rely on to really work hard get paid for it.” Why should the worker who isn’t going to put out 110 percent get the same pay as one who is only putting out 70 percent?

Roman's Opinion: Discussion Points For Meetings #9

Here a some new discussion points for your next meeting:


1.You need to continually present the shopper with “real” scenarios.


2. Selling catering is not a service industry concept – it is all about negotiations.

3. Doing challenges that are impossible to solve is what makes people greater!

4. A salesperson needs to become more “interesting” as the sale advances.

5. The salesperson needs to connect with the inner self of the shopper.

Sell What Is Best For You To Sell

Usually, caterers begin their business with a game plan to cater any type of event a buyer wishes to do. Their theory is that the best way to build a new business is by booking all events that come their way. This may be a reasonable marketing policy for a newly launched business, but it isn’t the wisest way to navigate after the first year. Determining what product lines to offer based on ease of production and maximum profitability is the best strategy when a caterer wants to limit their difficulties caused by mixing their better product lines with those that don’t benefit their profit goals.

Determine which of your product lines are better for your company by a combination of monitoring financial statistics and simple observation of what your customers buy the most. If weddings under 100 guests is one of your biggest selling product lines, but the profits from them are less than desirable, you should eliminate them from your product list by raising guest minimums and/or increasing pricing.

Changing or stopping certain product lines is often difficult to do if you are a caterer who tends to make decisions only with your heart. However, a surgeon does surgery and doesn’t sell services to people that have the flu. This doesn’t mean that a caterer does only a limited kind of catering. It does mean that a caterer needs to make sure they understand the profit footprint of what they sell, whether it’s weddings, picnics, box lunches, dinner parties, corporate galas or whatever.

The larger your annual volume, the more profit you are missing by failing to diagnose and evaluate the types of catering being sold. Notice that I used the word “missing” instead of losing. Often, larger caterers are actually making good profits from their hard work without examining the value of their product lines, but they are missing even more profit by not adjusting or eliminating one or more product lines. This is a practice that you cannot put off till tomorrow.

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Make Marketing Messages Shorter - IMPORTANT

People have little time to waste. Most get their marketing messages on the fly. Some tune out to all marketing messages that come their way whether they are reading, seeing or hearing them.

Many people look upon the constant marketing barrage they face each day as an invasion of their privacy and time. When creating a marketing piece, make the message short, concise and easy to understand. Some believe a marketing message has four seconds or less to capture enough interest for the target of the marketing to invest 10 additional seconds.

This means large blocks of copy are unwise. Use concise headlines and/or images to seduce the viewer to take more time. No matter how hostile a person is to mass marketing, they will not throw away anything that has a cat on it if they are cat owners! A “foodie” type person will do the same when a message has words or images that appeal to their particular interest.

Guest Article: Completing Projects by David Turk Indiana Market & Catering, New York City

How to manage any project to completion

Whether it’s an intimate dinner for six or a gala for thousands, the parties that we cater are each individual projects and need to be treated as such.  At the very least, simple project management tools must be put in place in order for us to be successful in running our respective businesses.

Here are a few simple steps that we use to make sure that we are consistently on track to cause our most important result to occur:  happy customers and their guests!

THE FIVE STEPS TO EFFECTIVE PROJECT MANAGEMENT

1) Identify the Outcome

2) Build the Right Team

3) Schedule Everything!

4) Honor your Word

5) Celebrate your Success!

  

Identify the Outcome

·      What are the specific results you are looking to create? 

         For instance:  to create 1000 hors d’oeuvres, crafted up to a particular minimum standard, by 3 pm on Wednesday afternoon

·      What are the tools that you can put in place in order to know that you are on track (i.e. timelines, pictures)?

Build the Right Team

·      What are the areas of accountability that are needed to fulfill on your specific results?

         For instance:  the kitchen, led by our chef

·      Who are the best people to fulfill on these duties?

         The chef will want to determine which teammembers are best suited to the task

·      Identify what’s in it for them

Good feelings, knowing they did the job well

Pizza lunch for the whole kitchen

A small bonus

Schedule Everything!

·      Create a timeline that makes clear what will be done when

·      Schedule the actions necessary to produce those results

·      Build in time to account for the inevitable breakdowns

Honor your Word

·      Do what you say

·      Do it when you say it would be done

·      If you don’t, make that public

·      Deal with the impact of not keeping your word

·      Respond to that impact, if necessary

Celebrate your Success!

·      Make sure everyone knows about the job well done and that the customer is thrilled!