Monthly Archives: August 2018

August 24, 2018 · 9:12 am

Crying To The Kitchen

This Foodie Friday, I want to write about something that’s been on my mind for the last month. It was about a month ago that I made my initial – but definitely not my last – visit to Skylight Inn. If you’re not familiar with the place, it’s the premiere BBQ joint in North Carolina and certainly one of the best in the country. It specializes in whole hog, eastern North Carolina BBQ, which is chopped meat combined with a vinegar and pepper sauce. It’s simple food but incredibly difficult to do well, and very few anywhere do it as well as this place.

Why has it been on my mind for a month? Because I had an experience which has only happened once before in my life. The food was so unbelievably good that it brought me to tears. I’m not kidding. The last time this happened was in Venice and my poor daughter had to endure me running into the kitchen to hug the chef while weeping praise in my bad Italian. While I didn’t run to the pit this time, I did run back for another plate.

The question I’ve been asking myself since my Skylight visit, besides when I can find the time to go back, is what other consumer experiences have brought about a similar reaction. I couldn’t think of any, which is unfortunate. While I realize that there is something multi-sensory about food (we see it, we smell it, we touch it, we taste it), I think it’s an interesting question for any business to ponder. How can what we offer prompt an overwhelmingly good feeling in our customers? How do we get them to be thinking about their interaction with us a month or more after it takes place? How do we instill that goal into every person and every touchpoint that engages with a customer or potential customer?

We may never send our consumers running to the kitchen weeping with joy but it’s not a bad goal to have, is it?

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August 20, 2018 · 12:23 pm

Married To Making A Decision

I had one of those wonderful Dad moments over the weekend. We walked our youngest daughter down the aisle to meet her true love under the wedding canopy. It’s one of those moments that really don’t hit you until you’re standing there at the back looking down the aisle. In my case, 28 years of this child’s (now woman’s) life came flooding back in a rush. I wonder what the pictures captured as we walked her forward?

Of course, the 48 hours preceding the wedding were a minor nightmare as family, friends, and others hustled to transform a huge empty space into a magical circus that could seat 130 for dinner as well as for the wedding ceremony. Place settings, table and site decorations, room for aerialists and fire-breathers (I’m not kidding), as well as dancing and food all needed to be pulled together. And that’s what leads to today’s screed because the entire process reminded me of one thing.

Nothing happens without someone making a decision. That sounds awfully basic but it almost crippled us as we set the wedding up. First, no one was really in charge and empowered to have the final call. Does the salad plate sit on the table or on the dinner plate? 10-minute discussion. Where should the dessert bar go? 10-minute discussion. Silverware rolled into napkins or placed separately? 10-minute discussion. Meanwhile, a dozen helpers are sitting idle and the clock is ticking.

It’s critical that decisions get made. It’s critical that there be firm deadlines set by which they’ll get made and that someone is empowered to make the decision at that deadline if one hasn’t been reached in some other way. The team needs to have a roadmap, a project plan with milestones. It’s a guide which can limit distractions (and emergency trips to the store!). Don’t go chasing every shiny object that presents itself and keep to the deadlines you set. Appoint a “benevolent monarch” whose word is law when those deadlines come.

As with most productions, there were things that didn’t go as planned and, as with most productions, no one in the audience noticed. The bride was gorgeous, the drinks were cold, and the dance floor crowded. The most important decision did get made: for two people to spend their lives together. We were all just lucky enough to watch that marriage happen. You, however, can’t run your business just on luck. Make some decisions!

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August 17, 2018 · 8:17 am

Pushing Addiction

Foodie Friday! I came across a piece recently that got me thinking. Even though it’s food-related (or we wouldn’t be discussing it today!) I think it touches upon a subject that is common across other areas of business. Let’s see what you think.

The article was in The Guardian and it seeks an answer to the question “why are we so fat?” The author had stumbled upon a picture from 1976. It showed beachgoers and the first thing he noticed was that there weren’t any fat people. He wondered why into his social media channels and every answer he got was wrong, much to his surprise. It wasn’t because we eat more or are less active (thanks, Internet) or due to antibiotic use or less exercise or even due to chemicals in our food. What seems to be the cause is:

While our direct purchases of sugar have sharply declined, the sugar we consume in drinks and confectionery is likely to have rocketed (there are purchase numbers only from 1992, at which point they were rising rapidly. Perhaps, as we consumed just 9kcal a day in the form of drinks in 1976, no one thought the numbers were worth collecting.) In other words, the opportunities to load our food with sugar have boomed. As some experts have long proposed, this seems to be the issue.

The main reason there is sugar in damn near everything (start reading labels more carefully if you don’t believe that) is that sugar is addictive. It defeats our natural appetite regulators. We aren’t eating more but we’re eating lower quality and getting more of our calories in the form of sugar and the food producers are doing this knowing that it will trick us into eating more than we need. They want us addicted and constantly hungry. We eat more; they sell more.

You think food folks are the only ones doing this? Tobacco manufacturers are cited in the article as doing pretty much the same thing. You might be doing it as well if you’re constantly focusing on “engagement”. The job of the product people at Facebook and others is to get you to keep coming back for another dish. All those little alerts on your phone are the digital equivalent of your gut saying “I’m hungry – feed me!”

If there is anyone in your business whose job it is to break down consumers’ self-regulation, you might want to think about if you want to be in the same business as a drug peddler. Many food companies are pushing an ultimately fatal addiction. So are many tech companies. Are you?

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