Category Archives: Helpful Hints

February 21, 2020 · 3:18 pm

Fried Chicken

It’s Fried Chicken this Foodie Friday. What comes to mind when I mention that dish? Is it the stuff you get from The Colonel or Bojo’s or Popeyes? Maybe it’s a plate of true “southern fried chicken” which is generally on offer at most of the classic BBQ joints here in the South. Whatever you’re thinking, let’s see if we can get you to think a little differently about it today as well as about your business.

At its core, fried chicken is juicy meat surrounded by a crispy coating. From that point, all roads seem to diverge. Is the bird marinated in buttermilk or some other seasoning? Is the coating full of herbs and spices or relatively plain? Is it thick or thin? Are we deep-frying or shallow-frying and in what oil or fat? I vaguely recall my mom making some sort of cornflake encrusted “fried” chicken and I’ll admit we had Shake-N-Bake on many a night. Does that count as fried chicken?

Decisions, decisions, right? But the choices we make can result in a completely different product even if it’s still “fried chicken”. Not many people would mistake Japanese karaage for traditional southern chicken nor Korean Fried Chicken for Kentucky Fried Chicken. Even within the south, Maryland Fried Chicken, which is breaded in just seasoned flour, shallow-fried and served with a cream gravy is very different from what’s generally served throughout the South – marinated bird, deep-fried, coated in flour and often cornstarch and/or baking powder.

All of this is a way to get you to think about your business. First, how is your product different? If you’re promoting “fried chicken,” is there a gap between what the common perception of that product is and what you’re actually marketing? Second, given that your fried chicken is different from most, why is it better than any types that are similar? KFC, Bojangles’, and Popeyes all sell the same product on the surface but it isn’t hard to tell the three of them apart when you try them side by side (I’m a Popeyes guy myself). I’m not sure, however, that you should need to do that comparison if each of their marketing clearly differentiates why their product is different (and better).

Many products fall under broad umbrellas even though there may be substantial differences, just as there are with the types of fried chicken. Our job is to stand out and to make consumers aware of how we’re different and why we’re better. How are you doing that with your fried chicken?

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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 3, 2020 · 12:26 pm

New Year, New Protein, Same Problems

Happy New Year and Happy Foodie Friday! I hope you all had safe and enjoyable holidays. I did and I used the break to do some experimenting in the kitchen. If you’re like me you probably have a dozen or so stand-bys that you cook a lot of the time. For me, these tend to get repeated with some frequency as I’m planning the menus for the week.

One “resolution” for this year is to try to be less meat-centric in my cooking so I used the holidays to try a few new things, one of which was a tofu recipe. While I do have a daughter who’s a vegan and an expert tofu preparer, I’m certainly not. Because of that, I was more dependent on the recipe I found that I might be with many other proteins. I bought all of the ingredients and followed the directions carefully.

Here is where the problem arose and it gets to the business point I’d like to make today. The ingredient list was very specific about using Sambal Oelek, which the recipe termed a “spicy garlic sauce.” That’s what I bought. I didn’t take the time to scroll through the comments on the recipe (an error I won’t make going forward) or I would have seen this exchange:

Commentor: sambal oelek doesn’t contain garlic. i’m looking at the ingredients and it’s ground chilis, vinegar, salt, and preservatives. is it possible you mean huy fong chili garlic sauce?

Author: AHH omg, you are right!!! That is exactly what I meant. They’re so similar in packaging that I just thought they were interchangeable names 😦

So I bought the wrong stuff. That’s not my issue, however. The date of the post was September of 2018. The author has known for over a year that the recipe is wrong and hasn’t corrected it to reflect the proper sauce. That’s what got me thinking about a number of points this illustrates.

First, we all know to be careful about things we read on the internet but it doesn’t hurt to remind ourselves that we need to delve more deeply into everything we read. Don’t take what you’re reading at face value. Find other sources. Dig more deeply. This reminded me to use my cookbooks as a source more often rather than the internet. I know the cookbooks have been vetted by people who cook everything carefully to assure the recipes are right.

Second, if we create content, I think we have an obligation to make sure what we post is accurate and if we find out that it’s not, we have an obligation to correct it. We should also point out the correction. Legitimate sources do that. If you want to be considered a trustworthy source, you need to do it too.

Third, the young woman who runs this blog (which is very nicely designed) seems to be trying to run it professionally even if it’s a side-gig from her regular job. My issue isn’t that her style is very light and fun. It’s HER style and every business should have their own. The problem is that light and fun can’t mean posting smiley faces when there’s an error. You need to take action. I can almost hear the “whatever” in her response to the above comment and this exchange which comes from the recipe saying to brown all 4 sides of the tofu cubes:

There are 6 sides to a cube, not 4…..

Yes, someone has always pointed that out to me. I haven’t gotten around to changing it in the recipe; it doesn’t affect the recipe in any way that I can’t get my shapes right 😉

A minor point? Sure. Is she right that it doesn’t affect the dish? Probably. But it does affect her audience’s perception of her professionalism and maturity. These two corrections would probably have taken her under a minute to make.

Make a resolution be accurate in everything you post in 2020. More importantly, promise to correct your errors. There is just too much misinformation out there, isn’t there?

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