Social Media Success for Restaurants

Confused about how social media can help your restaurant?  Did you know that Facebook's market share of social media traffic is 34%, and that the number two site is Twitter, at 4%?  Are you spending your time or marketing money in the wrong place?  Check out this informative video from Jerome Chiaro that includes strategies on email list building, promotions, and gameplans that can help your restaurant's success.

Need social media help? I recommend you check out Instant Buzz, a simple to implement Facebook marketing program that can transform the way you retain and attract customers! Send an email to visna.keat@facebook.com for more information or visit my website.

"Good Artists Borrow. Great Artists Steal."

"Good artists borrow.  Great artists steal." - Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs helped build Apple's amazing customer experience culture by stealing from a totally different industry.  The Ritz-Carlton is known for its superior customer experience, and Steve Jobs decided to emulate what they did for their customers.

Carmine Gallo, a contributor to Forbes.com, chronicles 3 different points that Apple borrowed from the Ritz-Carlton.  These simple additions to your company's processes can completely change your customers' experience.

1.  Use a warm greeting with the customer's name whenever possible.
2.  Empower your employees to do the right thing for the customer.
3.  Use a warm farewell with the customer's name.

This short video explains those points and if you incorporate them into your customer's experience, you will be sure to make a valuable impression.

Procrastination

Are you having procrastination problems?

Here is a great article that addresses the heart of the matter.  Read. Fix. Be Productive.

7 Reasons You're Procrastinating

4 Ways to Create Raving Customers

Here is a great article from Anthony Robbins to help you create raving customers.

Here are four keys to enlisting your customers in telling your story—and ensuring that your pipeline is always full of qualified prospects.

1. Deliver More Than You Promise

You will always need to promote your product or service, but as you convert your prospects into customers, give more value than they expect. Surprise and delight them with added value, and they will reciprocate in kind, sharing stories of your terrific service with their friends and contacts—who are then primed to become your next customers.

2. Move Your Customers to a Better Place

Meeting minimum requirements is one way to run a business, and it’s a sure route to failure. You and everyone on your team must be committed to doing whatever it takes to make sure you have raving fan customers. You’ve heard the legendary stories about how companies like Zappos take care of its customers. You must empower your staff to take the initiative and make the on-the-spot decisions that inspire lifetime loyalty. You have to create a structure and a system that allows everyone in your organization to consistently meet your customers’ needs.

3. Reward Your Best Customers

Remember, the most expensive thing you can do as a business is to acquire a new customer. For most businesses, this takes up most of your time, energy and money, and is one of the hardest things you do. Therefore, the easiest way to make additional money is to continually and better serve the customers you have. Use your customer data to identify those who come back more often, spend more and refer others, and let them know how special they are. Exceptional discounts, special offers and first-priority status are ways to ensure that you don’t lose them to an upstart competitor. Also, your best clients deserve your best offers and personalized communication.

4. Continually Ask Them What They Want

Innovation is essential today. Your business must continue to evolve to
effectively meet your customers’ needs in unique and powerful ways, or you face the certainty that someone else will rise to that challenge. So how will you evolve? Ask your customers. What is the biggest challenge they are facing? Why is it important that they find a solution? And then figure out how to help them, in ways that they can’t help but rave about to others.

Be Remembered - Red Carpet Service

This is one of my favorite videos for Entrepreneurs.  It's a video by highly regarded business coach Les Brown, and is video number 3 of a 3 part interview on YouTube.  In this video it addresses the need for the Entrepreneur to make it a point to touch the minds and hearts of the customer, so that the customer remembers them.  He uses a great experience of a driver who literally rolled out a red carpet for him when he got out of the car.  It's those type of unforgettable acts that creates buzz about your business and creates referrals and returning customers.

Who Am I?

That's a question every person asks themselves at least once in their lives.  But this is not a site for soul searching and contemplation, I'll leave that to you in your free time.  When going into business many small business owners seem to focus too much on the revenue stream rather than focusing on what they should be doing, which is serving the customer.

Who are you as a business owner?  You are a servant.

You are there to serve your customer.

Another word for serve is help.

You are a helper.

What are you there to help them with?  EXPERIENCE.

It's all about the customer experience.  If you are running a bar, restaurant, or just about any other service oriented business, know that your customer is not there just to get food, drinks, or whatever your product may be.  They are there for an experience.  Are you providing that for them?  If not, then you are not completely doing your job as the helper.

If you own a bar, it is not enough just to bring the customer a drink.  They could have purchased beer at the grocery store for a lot lower price.  Your TVs, are not an experience.  They already have a TV at home.  If you own a nightclub, you can't just provide only music, there has to be more, a lot more.  Do you provide insurance services?  Giving them insurance is not enough.  Your competitors can do that.  If the customer has chosen to come to your establishment, they are looking to experience something memorable, even if they are not consciously thinking it.  It is your job to provide that for them.

If you are able to provide the customer what they are really wanting (the experience, not the drink or product), then the customer will undoubtedly give you what you want: their money.  And if you do a really great job of giving them a positive experience, they will return to give you even more of their money.

Give them the experience.  And you will receive your reward.  Giving to Receive is an unfailing law of the universe.  Use it to your advantage.  You may have heard it as Karma, or Reaping and Sowing, or any number of forms it has been taught.  It is the basis of all religions that have ever existed, and it is preached by every successful businessman from Dale Carnegie to Richard Branson (Virgin Records, Airlines, Mobile, everything).  The reason why this principle has been around for so long, is because it works.

If you have been lacking at giving the customer the best experience possible, or have not been doing it at all, now is the time to start.  Search the internet for ideas.  Check out what the biggest businesses in your field might be doing.  See if what they are doing is working to create a better experience.  The best way to get ideas is to ask your customers!  They will tell you what they want.  Give it to them.

Always keep in mind, you are the helper.  Trust that if you fulfill this role then you will be rewarded with their help.

Think of it this way: If you plant apple seeds in the ground, then you will get apple trees.  And how many apples will that tree produce?  Too many to count right?  So goes what you plant with your business.  Will you plant the attitude of helpfulness?  You will reap countless help from the customer in the form of their money and likely even more than that.  Your customers can bring you great business resources as well.

Need ideas for helping your customer have a better experience?  I have a proven social media outreach program called INSTANT BUZZ that I can show you how to implement to better the customer experience and drive clients to your business.  This program helps you leverage the true power of Facebook to create a funnel of clients and prospects for years to come.  Send your email inquiries to visna.keat@facebook.com.

Who am I?

I am here to help you, just as you are here to help your customer.

A little bit about me.  I have done marketing and sales for Fortune 500 Companies like GEICO and Wells Fargo, and smaller local businesses like nightclubs, insurance agencies, bars, and special events.  I have dealt with corporations, non-profits, and entrepreneurs, and from what I have found from my professional and personal experiences is that the same principles always apply to successful relationships.  So whether it's business to customer, CEO to customer service agent, or husband to wife, the key to success lies in what type of experience you are able to give to the other person.  I am now using this knowledge to help others so that they can find more success in whatever endeavor they have chosen

If you feel that the information you have read here is of value, please share the articles with others that you think may benefit.  Thank you.


Visna