Category Archives: food

January 31, 2014 · 9:44 am

Tapas

Foodie Friday and the subject is tapas.

Español: Tapas en un establecimiento de Barcel...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Most of you are probably familiar with them although you might not know from where the term derives. A “tapa” is a cover, and tapas originated as pieces of bread to cover glasses of sherry in between sips to keep the flies out. At some point the bread began to be topped with other food; bread became plates and what we know as a tapa came to be.

The original tapas were very salty meats and, as with bars that serve salted nuts as free snacks, the salty food encouraged more alcohol sales.  Obviously the Spanish bar owners weren’t the only ones to figure this out.  The Italians have cicchetti, the Brazilians tira-gostos, and other cultures have their own versions as well.  Even if you’re not a bar owner, there are things you can learn from tapas that are applicable to your business.

Free food is customer-friendly, especially if it’s exceptionally good.  Does the fact that the free food is designed to sell more high-margin drinks detract from that customer-centric point of view?  I don’t think so, and even those customer who recognize that fact will probably acknowledge that they are getting quite a bit of value in the exchange.

Tapas are small plates, generally no more than two or three bites of food on each.  They always leave me wanting more but I also appreciate the fact that I haven’t really “committed” to a dish when I’m eating tapas.  I can graze, figure out which dishes I like the most, and have a much broader dining experience than if I simply orders an appetizer and an entrée.  As businesses we need to think that way.  There is a tendency once we have their attention to overwhelm our customers or prospects.  Less really is more.  Let them graze our information and product offerings until they feel as if they’re ready to commit.  That’s the nature of conversational marketing.

Tapas are just one expression of a tasting menu, something most high-end chefs offer.  Small plates have become a dining norm in a number of restaurants as well.  I suspect that while the cost per dish is lower customers order more of them and they lead to bigger profits per meal served.  All that while being incredibly customer friendly.  Isn’t that what business is supposed to be about?

Enhanced by Zemanta

1 Comment

Filed under food

Tagged as , , , , , ,

January 24, 2014 · 11:53 am

Can You Feel It?

It’s Foodie Friday and today I was inspired by something I saw last night on The Taste.

Healthy Berries are Good Food for Health

(Photo credit: epSos.de)

Yes, I do watch a lot of competitive cooking shows but I find it to be a great way to learn about technique and also how to think about blending flavors, textures, and foods into great dishes.   The guest judge was Roy Choi and he was giving one team a master class on making street food (of which he is a master!).  While serving them the food, he asked the contestants a lot of questions about how what they were eating made them feel.  Not how did it taste – how did it make them feel.

That resonated with me on a number of levels.  Maybe you’ve had the experience of eating something and having had a flood of memories hit you.  I certainly get that when I cook one of my grandmother’s recipes.  I’ve also had it happen sometimes when I eat a dish in one place that I’ve had in another and I am taken back to the place in which I first had it.  Food that makes you feel something is a great goal, one we can apply to our businesses too.

Part of many great brands’ success is that they make you feel something.  It can be nostalgia about our childhoods (Coke, Kraft, Campbell’s Soup) or being a part of a bigger cause (Apple, Prius), or maybe just safe and loved.  That emotional involvement, how we make people feel, is what helps differentiate great brands and great service businesses.  It’s not how the business “tastes” as much as it is how it feels.

Think about “cold” brands.  I’ve been to hotels where the place was clean and the service good but I’d have given up some efficiency for a little warmth.  I don’t think “warm and fuzzy” is for every business but I think every business does need to think about how their customers feel after interacting with them.  Those aren’t the kind of check box answers one gets on most surveys if the questions are even asked.  You need to dig deeper, maybe even become your own customer.  If you can’t feel anything, they probably can’t either, or at least not anything you’d want them to repeat. You with me?

Enhanced by Zemanta

Leave a comment

Filed under Consulting, food

Tagged as , , , ,

January 17, 2014 · 11:06 am

The Stuff On The Bottom

Let’s end the week with some Foodie Friday Fond Fun.

English: Fond left in a white enamel pot after...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What is fond, you ask? A food scientist would tell you it’s the residue on the bottom of the pan left over when you sauté meats or vegetables. It’s the browned stuff that forms from either caramelization of sugars or from something called the Maillard Reaction. I’d tell you it’s yummy goodness.

Every good cook knows that you never toss this stuff.  It’s the base for most good pan sauces and at a minimum you want to use it in whatever else you’re going to be doing with what you cooked to create the reside in the first place.  The addition of a little wine or stock or even water will release the fond and that process is called deglazing.  You can then use the resulting liquid either to make a sauce (add butter and seasonings) or as the base for anything from gravy to soup.  Whatever you do, you never want to discard it

That principle applies to business as well.  There are a number of very successful companies that are built on the residue of other business activities.  Think about how many times you read about “unsuccessful” brands being sold off or failing businesses being bought to be turned around, reinvigorated, or repositioned to yield better results.  Those things are the fond of business and private equity firms have learned to deglaze those opportunities into excellent profits.

We do that to people too sometimes.  An employee is not producing as they once did or maybe a smart person with excellent skills is burned out.  Rather than discarding them we should be thinking about what we can add – the deglazing liquid – to bring them back to life and transform them into a more productive, happier person.  Maybe it’s a role change or maybe it’s a different sort of challenge.  Like fond, discarding them is a waste of something that can be quite good.

The next time you cook something in a pan, think about how the stuff on the bottom of the pan will be used.  When you get the chance, you might give some thought to recognizing and using it in the office as well.  Yum!

Enhanced by Zemanta

Leave a comment

Filed under food, Helpful Hints

Tagged as , , , , , ,