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Restaurant Tech Upgrades For Right Now

As the year comes to an end upgrade your restaurants’ tech with these easy to install products for a more efficient, more appealing, and more secure 2015.

Restaurants Lighting, with its long hours of all bulbs burning electricity is a major expense. Upgrade to LED bulbs today and start saving up to 80% of the electricity immediately. This is one of the easiest ways to upgrade your space. Be careful not to get lights of a cold temperature that change the atmosphere of your space, I upgraded some halogen bulbs to these warm LEDs and have enjoyed their light, the electricity savings, and the quality of the build. Here is an amazon link:

Tired of your clunky old emergency lights with the huge, expensive, lead batteries that never seem sto be charged when it is inspection time? Yeah I was too, that is why I upgraded my restaurant’s emergency lights to these sleek, affordable, LED units that uses small easy to find rechargeable batteries. Oh and they always seem to be charged anyhow. These are a quick and easy install especially when you are just replacing an existing unit.

More and more customers expect to have a wifi network to use at the restaurant’s they frequent, whether it is a kid contently playing with their grandmother’s iPhone or a a business dinner that needs access to the cloud wifi is becoming a necessity and you don’t want guests choosing to go elsewhere when they need it. You also don’t want guest use to clog up your business network and or create any vulnerabilities in your system. That is why you need to get a wifi router that has dual networks, one for guests and employees and one for your business systems. This is the one that I recently upgraded to and I can fully stand behind its performance.

What upgrades are you thinking of making, want some advice on what I would do? Hit me up on Twitter @spirocks and I will be sure to get back to you.

Merry Christmas!

 

I am Spirocks on Twitter.

Embracing Change to Improve Your Restaurant’s Business

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You don’t read about marketing to gain insight on maintaining your status quo, you read to learn how to improve your restaurant’s business. All of us seek out ideas, strategies, and technologies that can affect change on the success of our business. That success could be the bottom line, the well being of our employees, or the satisfaction of our customers. In any light it is improved success that we are after.

To get there we seek change, and must lead our teams to accept, embrace, and crave it.

This change after all is not change for change’s sake, it is based on several analytical studies, among them:

  • Our Organization’s Data from successful sales and failed leads.
  • Interpretation of Market Opportunities and unfulfilled demand.
  • Employee and Customer feedback from the POS interactions.

So the change I speak of is another way of saying improvement or strategic positioning.

Am I supposed to do all this for my restaurant?

If you want to improve, yes you are.

  • You should be using the sales data on menu items to sort through the winners and losers, you should be tieing that data into the food cost of each menu item so you can emphasize the winners and work on the losers. Also how many private dining requests came in last month, how many did you book, what was the reason that those that did not book decided to go elsewhere?
  • You should be looking at your city like a consumer; to decide if there is a market opportunity. Like a town that had lines out the door for Sunday breakfast might cry out for an affordable brunch.
  • You should be constantly getting feedback from employees about what the customers are asking for, what they are loving, and what they were not so keen on.

Yes, these things will guide you to the points of change that you need to make, to keep your business getting better, growing, and becoming more successful.

Did someone say #Brunch today? Andolini's gets it going at 11am... #Andover

Employees often resist Change, your job is to lead them through it.

One of the hardest parts of doing something new is that it is unproven, and those who rely on a paycheck based on the current way of doing things often resist and/or subconsciously sabotage the new process. An entrepreneurial leader is one who will face the unknown, take a leap of faith in the decision that was made, and have earned the faith of the company’s employees so that they too believe and will work toward a successful change.

You must build an environment that allows you and your employees to connect with each other over the opportunity ahead of you, an environment that is sustained by trust.

Your employees are your most valuable resource, the genesis of your organization’s strength, and the greatest determinator of your success. You should engage them in the changes you make, let them take part in the determination of what ultimately is the final change, and also reap some of the benefits of the success you foster together.

In this way you are not their Boss, you are investing in them as a partner, and you engage with them on a level of mutual dignity. That should be the goal.

Next: Explain the Change to Your Audience.

Your audience, in truth, is a combination of the following groups:

  • Your current customers
  • The potential customers that exist in your market
  • Your employees

Some of your current customers may be adverse to change and the unknown that it brings. They may be attached to something that is changing or taken out of their comfort zone for another reason by the change. It is important to be clear and direct, avoiding ambiguities and outlining the positives of the change.

On the other hand your potential customers first need to hear about the change so that they know about this new offering that is aimed at them. When they hear about it, you should have the reasons outlined why they will love it, told from their perspective. Why is this what is missing from their lifestyle?

The employees are your ambassadors, they will be face to face with customers when they are asked what the Change is all about. If you do not give them the information they need, your change will be a muddled mess of interpretations not based on anything other than speculation. This is a major fail on your part.

Here is an example of how I addressed a major Change at my Restaurant to all these groups: http://andolinisrestaurant.com/brunch/

In Short, Change is a Challenge which when conquered results in Success.

What does your business need? I would love to talk about it.

I am Spirocks on Twitter.

I Got Sauced

i got sauced

It started out all in good fun. I wanted to open a place that made a really really good burger, crispy wings tossed in original homemade sauces, some hand cut french fries that you think about later in the week, and a small curated selection of craft beer cans. A fun, vivid, graphic vibe; bright colors, big tvs, funky names, and unapologetic ideas like a burger named: The Fat Kid. (A burger with every topping from every other burger including an over easy egg)

We would hire inspired cool people and have fun chipping ideas around, like making a hotter sauce by growing our own ghost chiles and coming up with a banging burger special each month that everyone loves. There is an infectious vibe in the crew and it resonates through the names and ideas that we toss around. I will never forget the way one of the main studs in the Sauce crew told me about an order for an extra patty fat kid burger. Harrison Starkweather (love that name) told me that someone had just ordered a Two Patty Fatty. Loved that.

Business blossomed as the team came together, more and more customers fell for our big ideas for simple food. We embraced spice and found a legion of heat seekers that wait for the next insanely hot sauce to come out. It isn’t always easy to grow, we had to tinker with the tiny space, adjust our food prep schedule, replace computers, and adjust the distance we would deliver to a few times. But we always have had a mojo, and some very talented chefs putting their heads together. Between Mike and Pat and Spencer the food is always under a close eye, and while we may be a fun loving group we take good food very seriously. I love a place that has no snobbery, no air of arrogance, but that just dives right into the fire to make something the best that they can, that is the goal of Sauce, and we try to get closer every day.

In Short; I Got Sauced, and I want to get the world Sauced too.

Some Recent Pics:

Burger of the Month Oct 2014 – The North Beef Burger – roast beef, northshore style bbq sauce, horseradish mayo, cheese & onion strings.

Home Grown Ghost Peppers:

Today's ghost pepper harvest was the best yet. Bringing the heat to @saucewings #getghost

A post shared by Spiro Pappadopoulos (@spirocks) on

 

I am Spirocks on Twitter.

The Social Feed and Employees

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How does your social feed embrace your employees? Does it at all?

These are the questions you should ask yourself. Are you tagging employees in pictures of the product of their labors, are you recognizing the fact that many hands are involved in creating what your business accomplishes? Do you thank, mention, and acknowledge in your social feeds?

Here are some reasons you should: 

  1. People who love doing a good job, like to know it is appreciated. And keeping great employees is the first step at keeping customers coming back. Be the leader they want to work for, one that gives them love.
  2. Social Media is public, and employees of other businesses in your area are watching. They will be more likely to want to work for you if they see you building your team up.
  3. Your employees have friends and family that want to see there work life celebrated too, these are not only sources of positive reinforcement but also potential customers who are looking to embrace those that support their loved ones.
  4. These employees are the faces of the story of your business that the community will want to embrace, a cocktail without a bartender is not the same experience. Celebrate your story, and the characters that make it unique.

There are tens of thousands of reasons to involve your Social Feed and Employees. These are just a few. Above you can see Mike, Spencer, and I having some fun at Sauce. If you wore your Jorts in that Thursday you got a free hand cut french fry… see those Jorts are worth something!

I am Spirocks on Twitter.

Tip: Consistently Communicate with Customers

Marketing a restaurant is a game of consistency, you can’t post/email thirty two things in the next 15 minutes and then take two months off. You know that. Yet it is still likely the case that you find yourself with gaps in your communications, lapses in the connection with your customers that helps drive business through your door. What you need is a plan, a system that helps you simplify, and I have one for you. 

A_Fat_Kid_Burger

See What I do on Instagram and Twitter by following @spirocks on both. 

Restaurant Marketing Simplification System:

First you need a base that you control, a place where you can guarantee the rules won’t change and affect all the work you have put in. That is your website/blog, and I spelled out the reasons here: ( Don’t Just Rent Your Friends ) If your restaurant website does not have a blog section, you should make that project number 1.

  1. Create a Blog on your website: Your blog is going to be the place where you create the content that is spread throughout your social networks and email lists.
  2. Create a Mailchimp Account. Great news; they are free up to 2000 contacts so you can try this out with no risk. Mailchimp allows you to send RSS campaigns, which means that once you publish a blog post you have Mailchimp automatically create an email from it and email it out when you want, like say 10am on Friday. That’s it, email campaign done. 
  3. Decide the frequency with which you wish to contact your email list. Once you have that plan, all you need to do is create a post before the date and time (give it an hour early) you set in Mailchimp and you are done. Most people find creating a blog post a less cumbersome process than creating an email and best of all you kill two birds with one stone. 
  4. Social Network integration via Mailchimp allows you to connect your restaurant social accounts and post to them at the same time.

So there you have it a simple way to create great content once, on a platform you control, and get it distributed free to everywhere it needs to be.

How frequently to post to your social networks:

In addition to the above, I suggest having a plan for social media only posts, as you should post to them more frequently than you email. So say you have a new special every Tuesday, share a picture of that with a simple one line description.

One great place to do this is through instagram, where you can take a photo of a special appetizer for example and share it to not only instagram, but also facebook, twitter, flickr, and tumblr all at the same time. Maybe I will write another post on that if you are interested.

Got any tips on how you streamline your restaurant’s online marketing? I would love to hear.

_Summer_isn_t_over_yet.__Boston_and_beyond_soak_it_in.

I am Spirocks on Twitter.

Don’t just rent your friends from Facebook

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Too many business owners have an online strategy which relies on garnering as many likes as possible for their Facebook page. This is wrought with peril and here is why:

At any time, and they do it often, Facebook alters how you connect with these people to further their goals. Which all revolve around making money off of these connections. They want you to rent your friends, plain and simple.

So as time changes, the investment you have made in those connections is adjusted, filtered, and rearranged to become more profitable for Facebook. Recently they altered how many of your business posts people who liked your page see if you don’t pay to promote them.  Its time to focus on making connections with these friends and followers as permanent as possible.

The answer for most of you: Build your email list. Start today, make it worth their while. How much should you invest in time and money? Answer one question: What is a permanent connection to your customers worth to you?

I am Spirocks on Twitter.

Dominate Instagram Marketing: How to Increase Your Brand’s Local Audience

Instagram has held the distinction as the fastest growing social media network for over a year now. For brands like yours, it puts the ability to get close to your targeted local audience in the palm of your hand.

This requires a healthy dose of inspiration be it artsy, humorous, insightful etc… it also requires you to have a solid understanding of the ins and outs of Instagram. That is what this post is about.

1) Follow the most influential local Instagrammers, interact with them.

Start by finding those that have tagged your business in a post, either by mentioning its name, or by geotagging photos at your place of business. These are happy customers who you must follow and interact with. Like their photos and let them know you are fans of them too, that good feeling is the beginning of an amazing instagram relationship.

Look for others in your community who are active on Instagram and follow them, like their content, get to know what they find interesting, finding customers that will sing your praises is a great thing. Remember you are great at what you do, once they give your business a try you will make them wish you had found them on Instagram earlier.

2) Hashtags are key to getting found, here is how to use them.

While I have a post devoted to this topic on its own, I will give you the cliff notes version here. Focus on finding the relevant hashtags for your post, making up a funny word may be entertaining for your followers but it isnt going to get searched for often if at all. Consider a fitness related post that included the hashtag #beeeasstmodelegdaaaaze versus #squats #legday #workout… clearly the latter post would transcend and be found more often. Studies have shown that including three or more hashtags in your post drastically increases how many people find it. In fact up to 7 are acceptable to Instagram users.

As far as local marketing goes, use hashtags that relate to the town/state/university that makes up your target audience. For instance I use the #andover hashtag frequently for my restaurants in downtown andover. It both relates to those who live in town, and to the prominent boarding school Phillips Academy Andover that is in town.

3) Pull back the Curtain, and do it frequently.

Intersperse images of what you are selling with behind the scenes pics of your team, your office, previews of future offerings… let your audience feel privy to your process and in turn they will feel a part of it. For instance showing pictures of our recently launched sunday brunch dishes is a good way to let people know how amazing they are, but showing them pictures of a bar full of people having a blast eating them is another angle. Those ‘product in motion’ or ‘experience’ images are often even more impactful. Try something different and let your audience look forward to finding your next image… be you, be human, share you business story. It may be your everyday, but to a lot of people it is very interesting and your providing a window into the happenings can make them feel much more comfortable taking the plunge and becoming a customer.

I am Spirocks on Twitter.

How to Use Hashtags

Hashtags are now universal, they are recognized by all the major social networks and are a part of our cultural vernacular that has established itself as more than a fad. You see them everywhere and that is a good indication that they are working for those who are using them.

How to Use hashtags

What makes Hashtags Valuable?

A hashtag connects you to people you don’t follow and who don’t follow you, whether a topic or event that dominates the days news like: #superbowl or a more obscure topic like #pollenation, or even something cheesy like #whyIlovecheese will make an informal bond between posts that share the hashtag, and consequently the people/brands that created the posts. When the Hashatag is clicked on, new people/brands are discovered that share a common interest in most cases.

How Much do Hashtags increase engagement for a brand?

Research done by Piqora shows that there is a sweet spot for hashtag use. There is a limit, where too much hashtag use is perceived as spammy.

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This chart from Piqora illustrates their findings on Instagram hashtag use, it clearly shows increased engagement with increasing use of hashtags to a point. After which the effectiveness drops off because it becomes a spammy message. A rule of thumb I like to use is:

Work Hashtags into the normal text of your message, if it reads like a sentence the effectiveness will be magnified.

For Example: Introducing the #Patriots #buffalo #wing #party package, get together for the #game and bring the #heat with 100 wings.

That way it reads like a sentence instead of: #patriots #buffalo #wings #game #heat #party

  • Be Smart About How you Use Hashtags

Like everything else you do for your brand, consider the end user. What are they interested in seeing, what is trending right now, are there current events that I can relate to my brand?

Have any interesting Hashtag stories to share with me? 

I am Spirocks on Twitter.