What Kitchen Nightmares Can Teach you about Marketing Your Products
I find myself watching some strange reality shows at times and last week I was watching Kitchen Nightmares. It’s hosted by that British chef who’s always swearing at people in his "game show". The premise of this show is that he goes into a restaurant that is failing for some reason and some drastic changes, brings it back to life.
Don’t Give Customers What They Want
In the show that I was watching last week, he visited an Indian restaurant that was bleeding money. The biggest problem he found in the restaurant is that they gave their patrons too many options. The customers were able to customize the sauce that they wanted. The owner came from a sales background so he had a noble strategy - he just wanted to give the customers what they wanted. Great intentions but bad results.
The problem with this strategy is that everything suffered in the business because their was no consistency:
- The customers thought they knew what they wanted but the fact was that the experts (the chefs) could put together a better combination of flavors that the customers would enjoy
- The orders would not come out in a timely matter because there were so many different combinations and the chefs could not operationalize the preparation.
- The servers could not stand behind and recommend different dishes because they were all just slight variations of each other and could not be differentiated from each other in blind taste tests
- The customers were left paralyzed with too many choices and felt unsatisfied that they weren’t getting what they want (having too many options is a classic in limiting sales because of "paralysis by over-analysis")
Less is More
The lesson in this when running your business is that you should limit the options for your clients. Too often, we try to satisfy the wants and desires of our clients and what we end up giving to them is something that they don’t really want. They may think they want it when they "order" it but they leave our "restaurant" unhappy with the whole experience.
Even worse than a restaurant, we get clients who just get up and leave. If we don’t present a clear offer with a limited number of options, they’re less likely to become our clients.
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One Response to “What Kitchen Nightmares Can Teach you about Marketing Your Products”
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March 12th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
kitchen nightmares is really a guilty pleasure. some of my best lessons from business are starting to come from that show. the lessons are almost the same week after week..and..for a slow learner like me..that is the best type.
a few that i see week after week:
keep the menu simple..just like your post..less choice..do a few things really great.
buy local..fresh food and more cost effective..helps you to keep track of your costs and future menu planning. many of the restaurants were serving frozen food..almost always a problem..bigger issues that just frozen food (see passion and is the place clean)
passion..enough said..many of the cooks could not even identify in a blind taste test what the food was that they were serving.
look for new talent..many episodes some of the side cooks have stepped up to become more than they were..they just needed for someone to have higher expectations for them.
what is missing in the market..a few episodes ramsey looked at what the town was missing and targeted that market. niche.
he asks the people/customers of the town what they think of the restaurant..
promotion..almost every episode one of the first things he does after he comes up with a new menu is have a large promotion for the new menu..he tells the customers that the place has changed.
stress levels..this was an eye-opener for me..it should not have been..ramsey will see where the kitchen is at by inviting a lot of people to the restaurant..it always exposes the problems.
is the place clean?..if the place is not clean..you have a lot more major problems that the place just being clean..and..ramsey ALWAYS helps clean the place..this is actually helping me with my clutter problem.
it does not surprise me that many of the episodes have restaurants that were former award winners..and..now can not keep any customers..no innovation.
teamwork..many times wait staff and kitchen were on different teams.
last and most important for me..never start a restaurant..lol
there are so many business lessons in this show. be entertained and learn something. EVERY business has the same problems just in different clothes.