Category Archives: Consulting

February 14, 2020 · 3:43 pm

Eating At The Bar

It’s Foodie Friday! As on most Friday nights, I’ll probably go out to dinner this evening, and since it’s Valentine’s Day, I’ll go early to make sure I get seated before the love birds on their twice a year dinner out clutter up one of my favorite restaurants.

I usually sit at the bar to eat at this place. Actually, I generally do that at most places since I find the service to be better. It’s also a lot more social and I’ve met some interesting characters who’ve become friends of a sort. At this place, I know the bartenders quite well and they make sure my glass is filled and the food is right. Truth be told, other than the burger, which is terrific, the food in this place is really nothing special. It’s all good but there are rarely specials and it’s sometimes a challenge to find something appealing on a very familiar menu. So why am I there so often? As it turns out, there’s a business point.

It comes down to the discussion between great customer experience vs. great product. I think CX, which you can interpret as service, wins much of the time. When I was in the corporate world, we worked with, among others, two very large tech companies. One provided superior products but their account people were dreadful. The other’s technology was good but not as good. Their account people, on the other hand, were the best. They anticipated our needs and addressed every issue we raised immediately. Do you want to guess which company was our favorite?

We found out that the first company paid their people bonuses based on sales while the second company paid based largely on customer satisfaction. This alignment of customer interests with company interests is exactly where any business needs to be. There is a famous Bain study that says 80% of companies think they provide superior customer experience, yet only 8% of those same companies’ customers think they get a great experience. Getting everyone’s interests aligned can help mitigate that.

I think we’re at the point where price and product mean way less than service and experience. Obviously, I wouldn’t let my love for the bartenders make up for inedible food or prices that were too expensive for the product delivered but the food is as good as any nearby competitor’s food, a meal costs about the same, and that’s good enough for me. Where do you come out on this?

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February 12, 2020 · 3:49 pm

TLI

We live in a time when many people overshare. You know what I’m talking about. They post pictures of what they’re eating. They check-in and post about every place they go with the exception of the bathroom. Every random thought is posted with the hope of stimulating some response even when the thoughts are pretty vacuous and of interest to none but the author (Hey, be nice – this screed doesn’t count!).

It’s TMI – Too Much Information, and I’ll admit that at times I’ve been as guilty as anyone. In my defense, I’ve now accepted that you can’t win an argument on Facebook even when you’re armed with facts so I won’t be engaging in THAT anymore. But one thing that I find to be just as bad as TMI is TLI – Too Little Information and that’s today’s subject.

A real-life example. I represent over 500 different franchise brands. While I’m very well acquainted with several dozen, it’s not really feasible for my aging brain to retain complete information about all of them, especially the ones I don’t discuss very often. Fortunately, the network I’m part of provides an information page on each of the brands and often there are recorded webinars that provide even more information. The brands themselves maintain the pages. Some provide a few pages for us to read with key selling points, finances the candidate must have, etc. There are often sales brochures we can download and send. Most importantly, they tell us why their brand is different from their competition. The very best brands give us extensive information and it makes it easy to present their brand. No issues here.

A large number, however, gives us nothing. Oh sure, we know what the franchise costs and what the royalty rates are, but we don’t have any materials to send nor do we have any information beyond the very basics. It’s TLI and it makes my job quite difficult. How do I represent a brand that’s a mystery to me? What distinguishes one residential cleaning service franchise from another? How is your lawn service franchise unique? Why should someone invest in your franchise vs. another in the same category?

You may be guilty of the same thing. Do you give employees enough information about a task you’re asking them to complete? How about vendors? Do they really understand why and how you use their products so they can provide better service? All of us in business are constantly providing information to various constituencies. The key is avoiding TLI just as much as we all want to avoid TMI. Make sense?

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January 31, 2020 · 1:38 pm

It Don’t Mean A Thing If It Ain’t Got That Wing

Foodie Friday and one of America’s great food fests comes up on Sunday. Whether you’re watching The Super Bowl at home, at a party, or in a bar, there is probably an abundant amount of food around. One staple of football watching is the Buffalo Wing and they’re our topic today.

There is hardly a bar that doesn’t serve wings. That makes sense since they got their start in either a bar or restaurant (depending on which version of history you believe) in Buffalo, NY. The basic wing is deep-fried and tossed in a peppery sauce, but does anyone just eat basic wings? My buddy Barry owns a joint that sells 7 varieties of wings. Buffalo Wild Wings offers 25. Heck, even my favorite local tavern offers 10 varieties. But what those facts scream to me is that buffalo wings aren’t about wings at all: they’re about the sauce.

Think about it. Most places deep-fry the wings. When I make them at home, I dry-brine and bake them. I suppose you can broil them too. But does anyone really pay that much attention to the wing? Not really, unless it’s undercooked inside or has sat around so that the skin is chewy. Everyplace is after the same crisp product.

Where one wing shines over another is the sauce. The choice, and intensity, of the brand of hot sauce makes a difference. Dry rubs vs. sauce at all is a choice. We often get garlic and parmesan wings that feature nice chunks of garlic and grated cheese. Whatever your choice, there is a business point to be made.

What distinguishes most businesses is the sauce. Customers have expectations that the fundamental stuff such as basic customer service and a product that does what you claim it will are foundational – they’re the wing. It’s how you “sauce” the basics that makes all the difference. Just as with wings, the more ways you can do that the great the likelihood that you’ll allow the customer to find something that they love.

It really doesn’t mean a thing if you ain’t got that wing. The basics of business have to be sound before you worry about the sauce. That said, one thing I always ask consulting clients is what their special sauce is. It’s a question you should ask yourself about your business (and about yourself if you’re going to be job-hunting!). It’s the sauce that matters, after all.

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