Category Archives: food

June 27, 2014 · 8:55 am

Vegas And Veggies

For our Foodie Friday Fun this week I’d like to ask you what your local supermarket and a casino have in common?

Casino Royale en Las Vegas

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

You might not have noticed but neither of them have clocks that are highly visible.  In the case of the supermarket there is a general rule that says the longer someone is in the store the more money they will spend (I suspect the same is true of a casino) so they don’t want anything to remind the customer that time has passed.  That’s one of the things each of these very different types of establishments do to increase sales.  You’ve probably never seen windows in either place (in fairness very few stores have windows other than up front), and both deploy a wide range of sensory stimuli to encourage spending: music, fragrances, lighting, even nuances like colors.

It’s really about engagement.  Does it surprise you that both casinos and supermarkets have researched how to create engagement for a very long time?  In my mind, the only reason that it should is that both do a fairly good job about not being obvious in the psychological tricks they use to create engagement.  Here is a quote from an interview with the manager of a Fairway store:

“The real secret of Fairway’s success is to make the shopping experience emotional,” the manager concluded. “We want our customers to be wowed by our unique product selection, service, and merchandising.”

Which is very good guidance for any of us in any business.  The strongest connection you can have with a customer is an emotional one.  Your pricing may change (for better or worse in the customer’s eyes) but their memories of having been treated like a special guest won’t.  If you’re tending to their needs and making sure they’re content instead of “doing transactions” you are creating a bond.  It can be with content or it can be an in-person interaction but engagement through an emotional connection is as good as it gets.

Think about that while you’re wandering the aisles!

Leave a comment

Filed under Consulting, food

Tagged as , , ,

June 20, 2014 · 9:11 am

Why Cook?

Foodie Friday (finally) and this week’s food screed is about cooking. I’m always surprised that many people – younger people in particular – can’t cook.

Cooking Knifes

(Photo credit: nickwheeleroz)

Oh sure, they can heat up something in the microwave and say they’ve “cooked” supper, but since food is one of life’s necessities, one would think that everyone would take the time to learn to prepare it.  There are some basic business points in my thinking as well (you knew THAT was coming…).

I can hear the naysayers among you: “Cooking takes time and I don’t have any.”  Not true.  Once you’ve learned a few basic skills, you can have really good dishes on the table in under 30 minutes.  That’s not longer than it takes to heat a frozen meal up in the oven and while the microwave might cut that time down, there is no comparison to the quality (plus you’ll generally have some leftover for the next day).

Other reasons to learn to cook:  you know what you’re eating.  I guarantee you can pronounce the names of everything you put in a dish – read a frozen food package and see if you can say the same.  The ingredients are healthier too.  Ordering in?  Besides being more expensive than doing it yourself (even factoring in the cost of your time), you have no clue how much salt or fat was used, no clue if everything was as scrupulously clean as you would make it, and no idea if the food will arrive hot (ever had a pizza arrive with a steamed crust – yuck).  Finally, cooking is fun.  OK, maybe not so much when it doesn’t go well, but for me it’s almost a form of meditation.  It takes you away from the rest of your world and forces your focus elsewhere.  So why this rant on why you should learn to cook?

Like the non-cooks, many businesses haven’t learned some of the basic skills they need, thinking they can outsource them or buy an off-the shelf solution.  In some cases it makes sense – it’s like going out to eat every so often.But take, as an example, a web business that outsources all of its coding and design.  That firm is at the mercy of the developer. They can’t “cook” for themselves.  Obviously I’m a “dine out”solution for my clients so you know I’m a fan of looking outside for some tasks.  But mission-critical skills – which will vary by business – should be acquired and available, just like cooking.

Your take?

Leave a comment

Filed under Consulting, food

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

June 13, 2014 · 10:13 am

Cooking Trolls.

Our Foodie Friday Fun this week deals with cooking trolls.

English: Troll Federlandese

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Of course I don’t mean actually cooking them but then again those evil creatures don’t actually exist either.  Restaurants – and every other business – have to deal with negative reviews in social and other media.  Sometimes they’re warranted and sometimes they drift over into troll-dom.  Today’s screed is about how one restaurant owner handled a troll and hopefully we can all learn a little something from his method.

As the folks at ABC reported:

After a customer posted a review on UrbanSpoon — which has since been deleted — requesting that the servers show more skin, owner Daniel McCawley took matters into his own hands.

“It was brutish. I was upset. I’m a father of a 12-year-old girl and I’ve got five sisters,” McCawley said. “The way that women are treated is pretty personal as far as I’m concerned.”

He did show more skin by offering a potato skin special. 100% of the proceeds will go directly to the West Virginia Foundation for Rape Information Services.  Clever, non-confrontational, and it generated a ton of positive buzz for his business.  That’s the right way to handle this sort of thing.  Suing the trolls (if you can find out their real identities), forcing review sites to delete the negative reviews, or responding in kind with defamatory comments about the poster do nothing but make you appear small.  My lawyer friends would tell you that it also opens you up to a series of legal issues when you start making allegations.

We forget sometime that if we serve 10,000 people and make 99.99% of them happy, there is still one unhappy customer.  In fact, some people who post these reviews had a great experience but, like the idiot above, find something about which to complain.  You can ignore it (which is probably what I would have done in this case) or use it to do something smart to cook the troll (which is where the owner proves he’s smarter than me!) or choose to jump down into the mud with them.  Your call.

Leave a comment

Filed under food, Helpful Hints

Tagged as , , , , , ,