Category Archives: Thinking Aloud

June 6, 2014 · 8:41 am

Meatballs

For our Foodie Friday Fun I’d like to challenge you.

A batch of Danish meatballs, also known as &qu...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Name a culture that doesn’t have a meatball on the menu. Chinese? Got a lot of them. German? Not even Klopse (see what I did there?). No, they’re pretty common everywhere, and why not? They’re a wonderful way to stretch meat as well as to make use of the scraps left when trimming larger cuts.

In most cultures, the meat is ground or finely chopped and some sort of panade – a moistened mass of bread – or breadcrumbs are added both for moisture and lightness.  The herbs and other seasonings are added, as is a binder such as egg.  The mixture is rolled into balls and then fried, steamed, boiled, or cooked in some combination of those methods.  Of course meat is optional.  Once can make excellent meatballs with beans and vegetables and bind them with soaked ground flax-seed in place of eggs to keep them vegan.  What does this have to do with business?

A lot.  First, meatballs are the common food across cultures.  NYC is the crossroads of the world.  Is it a coincidence that a place called The Meatball Shop has done really well here?  If I’m creating a product that I want to sell around the world, or at least to a diverse customer base, I look to the ubiquity of the meatball as a guide.  What do this culture’s meatballs have to do with other with respect to methods and materials?  How can that guide me from a product and marketing perspective (I’m looking for affinities here, not for the types of spice they prefer.  Are they more in tune with, say, England than with Denmark?).

Next, I look to the meatball to remind me that there is no one way to do anything.  Most meatballs are relatively simple although they’re equally simple to screw up by making them too dry or under-seasoned.  Keeping things simple prevents errors, as does clean instruction and detailed recipes.  That said, allowing people to do things their way and to build a better ball can move the business forward.  Embrace their mistakes and help them feel free to make them.

Finally, meatballs can be a bonus product created from the detritus of the main dish.  What can be made from the by-products of what you do every day?

Amazing what we can learn from something so simple, isn’t it?

Enhanced by Zemanta

Leave a comment

Filed under food, Thinking Aloud

Tagged as , , , , ,

May 19, 2014 · 12:19 pm

Fee-ed up

The family and I went to a concert last night – more about that tomorrow.

CeBIT Home 1998 student day ticket with barcode

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In the process of setting up the evening out with the family, I bought tickets online.  I actually bought one too many so I sold it online as well.  If you’ve done either – along with a host of other things – in the last couple of years, you’ve probably noticed that there are fees associated with those activities.  Obviously there is the price of the ticket but there are handling fees, convenience fees, delivery fees, processing fees and who knows what else.  I’m fee-ed up.  Let me explain.

I certainly don’t begrudge anyone from making a buck for providing a service.  My issue is that many businesses seem to have followed the lead of the airline industry in nickel and dime-ing their customers to death.  Let’s take last night.  The face value of my ticket was $118.  On top of that, I paid a service fee of $12.80 (almost another 11%) and a $5 facility charge (another 4%) per ticket.  There was also a $3.25 order processing fee.  The last one is, in my opinion, where the nickel and dime mentality lives.  In light of the $102 they made processing my order for the tickets, do they really need another $3.25?  At least I didn’t get charged to use my own printer to print the tickets out…this time.

Then I sold a ticket.  Since it was an in-demand show, I was able to do so for $225.  Of course, that was before I paid 15% to the site that helped me sell it – $34.  At least that fee was straightforward.  Had I been selling baseball tickets, however, there’s also a $1.50 per ticket MLB transfer fee and a $2 per ticket delivery fee. So while MLB got paid by selling a seat, they want to get paid again (as if the beer and hotdogs aren’t enough) because what might be an unused ticket moves to someone who will be there.

It’s not just tickets.  Looked at your phone bill?  What’s an “administration fee” except billions in the phone company’s pocket and a buck out of yours? Bought a car and paid a “document fee” of a couple of hundred dollars? Bank fees are among the worst and try telling the cable company you don’t want a remote control for which they charge you every month.  Then there are the airlines…

I’ll say it again.  It’s fine to  collect a fee for delivering a product or service.  Be upfront about it (you usually discover most of these fees after you’ve “bought”).  Make them clear and reasonable and in line with what the customer would expect to pay for your service.  The way to lose big bucks in my mind is to collect nickels and dimes in a sneaky way on top of those bucks.  What do you think?

Enhanced by Zemanta

Leave a comment

Filed under Consulting, Thinking Aloud

Tagged as , , ,

May 16, 2014 · 10:52 am

Reviewing Reviewers

I’ve got criticism on the brain this Foodie Friday, not because I’ve been the subject of any but I read a restaurant review and it got me to thinking.

Workers in the kitchen at Delmonico's Restaura...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There are certain elements to a restaurant review that are certainly objective.  The silverware either was or was not clean, the water glasses were or were not refilled on a regular basis.  Much of what one would talk about, however, is very much subjective.  What is good to the reviewer might not be very good to you at all.

At least with a professional reviewer, one can hope that in addition to a palate that’s been educated a bit they would demonstrate fairness and honesty and not just try to write a clever rip job for the sake of doing so.  The good ones have an appreciation that they are not in an objective field but they know that the critic’s job is to educate and illuminate and to give you a comprehensive view of the dining experience, hopefully making multiple visits to the eatery to form an opinion.  Today, of course, everyone is a critic – just spend 5 minutes on Yelp.  The standards I just mentioned don’t apply.

This would drive me crazy if I were a chef.  Then again, I think there’s a business point in it which can be helpful to all of us.  The smart cooks just go to work and present the best possible quality food every day and enjoy themselves while doing it.  They acknowledge that they’re being evaluated each time they present their product but they don’t let the criticism overwhelm them.  It’s a tool to help them measure themselves and improve and some is more accurate and valuable than others.  They review the reviewers in the context of their own skills and standards.

We forget that in business sometimes.  Satisfying 99.9% of 1,000 customers means someone is unhappy.  If they’re a loyal, long-term buyer then that review is based on multiple visits and is an informed opinion.  Listen and learn.   More importantly, ask if you put out your best product.  Have you set your standards high enough and commiserate with your abilities or are you slacking?  When your year-end review isn’t as good as you expect, is it an objective, fact-based listing of where you’ve come up short or is it a subjective rant?  Review the reviewer but don’t dismiss a bad one out of hand if it’s accurate.

We’re all evaluated each time we produce a product.  Listen and learn and present your best product.  When you do so with high standards, the reviews will be fine.  So will your sanity.

Enhanced by Zemanta

Leave a comment

Filed under food, Thinking Aloud

Tagged as , , , , , , ,