Category Archives: Helpful Hints

April 27, 2018 · 11:01 am

Copycat Recipes

This Foodie Friday we’re contemplating the field of endeavor known as copycat recipes. If you read any food sites, at some point you come across recipes which attempt to replicate some of the more popular dishes from chain restaurants. Yes, you too can have unlimited Red Lobster Cheddar Bay biscuits and Chick-Fil-A sandwiches at the same time!

There are books of these recipes and I’ll admit to having tried a couple over the years. While I’ve come close to duplicating a few dishes I’ve enjoyed in restaurants, the results were not exactly the same. One wouldn’t expect that though. I’m not using the same ingredients (the bacon I buy may not be what McDonald’s uses) nor do I have a commercial convection oven or deep fryer. Still, they were enjoyable enough and in a couple of cases, the experience inspired me to create my own variation that I liked even better.

I think these recipes can be fun for some but they miss a fundamental point. Making Girl Scout Samoas at home, besides being incredibly time-consuming, doesn’t support the Girl Scouts. When I want a “hot now” Krispy Kreme, I don’t want to wait a few hours for my homemade versions to rise and fry. What makes some of these dishes so good, in part, is that you don’t have to cook them. They’re risk-free, they’re ready when you want them, they’re always available, and they’re consistent. And of course, that’s the point today.

It’s quite possible that someone will try to copy what it is you’re doing if you’re doing it well. In the case of recipes, the cook can’t turn to the copyright law to protect the dish. Recipes aren’t subject to copyright. Mp3 players had been around for several years before Apple “copied” the recipe and improved it. One could argue that Apple was the victim when Microsoft “copied” the graphical interface that became Windows from Apple, who had “copied” it from Xerox. Sure, you can file a patent to protect you but that immediately makes how you’re doing what you’re doing available to anyone. They can then produce a variant on what you’re doing. Each of the folks in my examples made the recipe their own. That’s the point. You protect your secret recipe in either of two ways and the law has little to do with either.

The first is never to make the product public so no one has a chance to duplicate what you’ve got. Obviously, that’s not a great solution. The other way is to make sure that you produce the end-result to a consistently high standard which is risk-free for the customer, and that you provide that customer with an unrivaled level of support and service. That’s why copycat recipes will never be as good as what you get when you dine out. You copy?

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April 13, 2018 · 12:43 pm

A Slice Of Menu Advice

It’s Foodie Friday and our fun this week derives from some things I took away from an article on pizzeria menus. I know – what is a guy whose consulting practice focuses on strategy and media doing reading an article on how to write a best-selling pizza menu? Well, as I’ve often mentioned, one never knows from where a great insight will spring and so it’s incumbent upon us to look under every rock and (pizza) stone, don’t you think?

The article, from Pizza Today, talks about a number of things that can drive more sales from the same menu. I think a number of those things are applicable to most businesses, food-related or not. First, there is such a thing as TMI – too much information. If the menu details every bit of information about each ingredient in the pizza (local mushrooms grown in special caves, organic, non-GMO cheese from a particular type of cow, etc.) it’s likely that the customer‘s eyes will glaze over and they’ll stop reading. I don’t need to tell you about information overload – most of us suffer from it and despite the often-cited false information that our attention spans are now shorter than those of a goldfish, I do believe our tolerance for excessive information has vanished. We’re all too time-challenged, so respect your customer by providing enough detail so that they can make an informed decision (it’s pecorino cheese)  but know that too much and they turn off (it’s pecorino, a hard, salty sheep’s milk cheese from Lazio).

The piece also talks about changing the menu a few times a year. One owner mentions that he

changes 25 to 30 percent of the menu about four times a year, “which we need to do as a neighborhood restaurant. It gives us a story to tell customers — why we have changed it up. That keeps customers excited and chefs stimulated and allows us to serve seasonal food.”

That’s a good thought regardless of your business. It’s imperative that you keep in touch with your customers but to do so you really need to have something to say. A new product or service or the fact that something that customers are used to seeing in your offerings will be discontinued is news. Too many businesses post what amounts to spam and make their user bases less like to engage when they really do have something to say.

Finally, the article mentions how the menu should call out information that is important such as gluten-free and dairy-free items along with upcharges. Recognizing that some customers have special needs and that most customers aren’t happy when they get it with fees they weren’t expecting is just common sense for anyone in business. We’ve been over the mess the airlines have made of doing fare-comparisons because almost no airline sells you a ticket without some sort of extra fee. The same is true of concert tickets, hotel rooms (those resort fees!), rental cars, and many other businesses. Are you happy when they pop up on your bill? Neither are your customers.

That’s what I learned from a pizza menu. You?

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April 9, 2018 · 10:48 am

Marketing To The Middle

I watch a fair amount of news programming. I guess maybe I need something to keep my blood pressure sky-high or something to justify my frequent yelling when there aren’t kids on my lawn. I don’t really think it matters which side of what issue you’re on these days. There’s always a panel “discussion” (since I guess yelling at one another now constitutes discussion) somewhere on the dial that hits all the talking (yelling?) points on each side.

There isn’t any doubt in my mind that we live in a highly-polarized place. Everything is either a 1 or a 10 when it comes to our feelings – there is very little middle ground. That said, I think that one lesson we can learn from the current environment can be exceptionally useful when it comes to how and to whom you market your products or services. No, I don’t think you should yell. I do think, however, you should focus on the middle. Let me explain.

As I was watching MSNBC, which is more liberal-leaning that some outlets, I saw an ad for a book about the so-called Deep State. I’m well aware that the term is often used by right-wing pundits to talk about opposition to the current administration. While the term actually has no political right or left leanings, the title of the book involved the “fight to save President Trump.” I’m not sure that many MSNBC viewers are ready to sign up for that fight. I’m also thinking that when the media buy was made, they looked at both news viewers and audience size as desirable targets. Hence the buy.

Look at the media you and your friends create on social media. I’m willing to bet that the folks who argue issues most vehemently are also unwilling to change their points of view. Has anyone ever won a social media fight? I haven’t seen it, but I have learned from it as well as from the example above and others. What I’ve learned is this.

Every product or service or issue has a core group of supporters. You often hear of a politician speaking to “the base.” That’s his or her core group and every product has one too (think about a brand you won’t change even if a competitive brand is half the price). You’re not going to change the base’s thinking. Every product or service or issue has people who are just as committed as the base but on the other side. This is the opposition. I won’t fly a certain airline no matter what, even if the fare is less and the schedule better. Marketing that brand to me is useless.

We need to market to the undecideds – to the middle. It’s easier to find those folks when the product isn’t a politician and that’s what we need to do. Basic demography won’t do it nor will broad assumptions about an audience. It involves digging and understanding a lot more than age/sex/geography. The undecided middle is where our marketing battles are won and lost. The question is how each of our businesses finds it. Any ideas?

 

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