This show is designed for pizzeria owners and operators, whether you’re a veteran or just opening your first store.  When the show closes on Thursday afternoon, you will have had the opportunity to visit nearly 1,000 exhibits and attend your choice of more than 70 educational sessions.  Rounding out the experience are numerous culinary competitions, contests, demonstrations and other special events. And, you’ll find more pizza to sample than you can imagine.

I’ve arranged a special discount for RestaurantPartner.com readers. Just click the link below to download the registration form. You can learn more about the expo by visiting www.pizzaexpo.com.

Download the Registration Form

Three simple ways to know EXACTLY what to advertise…
Do you normally respond to ads for things that you don’t often buy? Umm… no? Same thing for your own restaurant and pizzeria customers. They pretty much keep buying the same things… over and over and over. That means… you should keep advertising the SAME things… over and over and over. (I’m not talking about cutthroat discounting either – I’m talking about “selling” your product).

Sure, you can roll out something new from time to time and see if it’s got legs… but for the most part – you need to advertise your biggest selling menu items… pepperoni pizzas… ham sandwiches… whatever.

In this short video – you’ll see the complete logic behind making offers to people – on items they already want to buy. That way – instead of having to twist their arm… you just pop them a little reminder…

Also, look around… I’ve opened up more free content for you… go ahead – click some of the links.

Also… check out the archives if you missed my last blog on building a killer coupon…

Till next time…

Just ask Buffalo Wild Wings, McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Checkers Drive-In, Domino’s Pizza, Pizza Hut, Subway, Quiznos Sub, Firehouse Subs, Taco Bell, and Wingstop. All of these national restaurant brands have hired football player spokespersons or have developed unique marketing campaigns to draw the pigskin-loving crowd.

For the pizza and wings-based brands, it makof their business and Super Bowl Sunday is by far their busiest day of the year. Here’s what the profile of an NFL football fan…

• Male: 72%
• Men 25-54 – 43%
• Household Income: $75K+ – 39%
• Median Household Income: $62,000
• 4+ Years College – 31%
• Internet Access – 72%
• Source: Nielsen Media Research, 2004

Of course not every restaurant can hire a star NFL player and run multi-million dollar TV advertisements. However, there’s no excuse for not being able to tap into this predominantly male demographic.
Here are 6 strategies that you can implement to market to football fans.

#6. Name a menu item after the local team’s mascot.
Wendy’s did this in its own backyard – Ohio. To attract Ohio State fans, the nation’s third-largest burger chain launched the Brutus Buckeye Burger and offered it through the football season. Think of all the possibilities for your restaurant. It doesn’t even have to be permanent. Maybe you change the name of your most popular item in honor of the most popular team in your area? You can create a limited time offer promotion around it and watch sales soar.

#5. Accept football ticket stubs as coupons.
This can be done at any level, including high school and junior high football leagues. You can even try posting signs at the stadium entrance to drive game watchers to your restaurant.

#4. Wear a Shirt, Get the Special
It’s one of those promotions that’s easy for customers to do and let’s them show off their team pride. Offer a standing game day “Sunday Special” but only to those customers who come in wearing their favorite team’s jersey or maybe a specific team’s jersey – it’s your call.

#3. Buy radio and television spots during local, regional or national shows (whatever your budget permits).
Sports fans don’t change the channel as much as daytime viewers. That’s because the fans don’t want to
miss the big play. And according to ESPN’s sales department, sports-fan-targeted ads are typically more
appealing and funnier than ads about laundry soap and dog food.

#2. Sponsor fantasy football.
You can sponsor fantasy football leagues and offer the winner a free meal at the end of the season. Post the results every week and watch your male customers increase — because they love looking at their football fantasy stats.

#1. Incorporate your Customer Loyalty Program
The easiest and most effective way to build your football marketing program is through your customer loyalty program. You simply tie your football specials and promotions to customers who have joined your loyalty program. Then, you have direct access to them every week via email, text messaging or direct mail.

Mid-week you can send an email to all your loyalty program customers – or just the male customers – and let them know what teams will be playing and your weekend specials. This will also help you trim down the cost of TV and Radio commercials.

With Text Messaging you can send a message to all your customers just a couple hours before the game inviting them in for a “last minute” special. Or, you can send a text message at half time inviting customers to join you for a “post-game” celebration. When you have an “immediate” marketing vehicle like text messaging, the possibilities are unlimited.

And what about Rewards and Bonus Points?
Depending on the type of rewards you offer in your loyalty program, you can come up with some fun promotions without breaking the bank on discounts and specials.
Here are a few ides:

• Offer Double or Triple Points on game days
• Tie reward points to fantasy football league winners
• Issue Bonus Points or Rewards based on game picks – have customers complete a game day sheet with their picks and give 20 points for every game they pick correctly. Maybe offer triple points if they pick the final score.

These ideas aren’t just limited to Football. You can easily take the same concepts and modify them for Basketball (especially during March Madness), Baseball, Nascar or any sport that is popular in your local market.

The average catering budget for a pharmaceutical rep is between $800 and $2500 per month! That means within your take-out or delivery area alone, pharmaceutical reps are spending between 1 and 3 million dollars a month.
How much of this are you getting?

Having a well planned marketing strategy to target pharmaceutical reps can bring BIG sales during lunch and dinner. That money has to be spent somewhere. It might as well be YOUR restaurant.

To help you get your piece of the pie, here are some things to consider when catering to pharmaceutical reps.We’ve categorized these considerations between Lunch and Dinner. What your about to read is feedback received from actual pharmaceutical reps. This is what THEY look for in a restaurant and what drives their buying decisions.

Lunch:

1. Offer all major credit cards including American Express. Different Pharmaceutical companies provide their reps with different credit card brands. The most common is Visa but some do use American Express.
2. Offer delivery and set up. The key to marketing to pharmaceutical reps is to make their life easier.
3. Provide quality packaging to offer great presentation. When a rep provides a lunch it is a reflection of them and their company. Presentation appeals to both the office staff and physician.
4. Offer drinks and dessert for off-site catering
5. Be On Time!
6. Always provide an itemized receipt or invoice of what was ordered. Pharma reps use this for their expense reports and having this available with every order will make their life easier and motivate them to use your restaurant more frequently.
7. Provide flatware, plates and serving utensils FREE OF CHARGE. It is a major irritant when restaurants choose to charge for this service.
8. Have one person in your restaurant dedicated to handling pharmaceutical rep lunches. They prefer one point of contact and the ability to establish a relationship.
9. Offer them a Rewards Program. Pharma reps are spending their company’s money and a rewards program provides them a way to personally benefit from the money they spend on lunches and dinners.

Dinner:

1. Provide privacy with a private room. Dinners usually involve a speaker which requires the proper environment.
2. Have a screen and projection equipment.
3. If you are going to require a minimum, make it reasonable. An acceptable amount.
4. A pre-set menu is acceptable as long as you offer 2-3 choices for the main entree.
5. Have one person in your restaurant dedicated to handling pharmaceutical rep dinners. They prefer one point of contact and the ability to establish a relationship.
6. Offer them a Rewards Program. Pharma reps are spending their company’s money and a rewards program provides them a way to personally benefit from the money they spend on dinners.

How Do I Get Started?

After you have considered the above needs, you will need to start targeting reps AND their offices. Usually a rep will order from the restaurants their offices request. So the fastest way to get into this market is to target the doctor’s offices.

Restaurantpartner.com offers a variety of pre-designed postcards that target Doctors Offices. You can also purchase a mailing list for all the doctor’s offices in your area. This will get the word out. You should also follow up the mailings with a personal visit to the offices.

Once you receive an order from a pharma rep, pull out all the stops and OVER SERVICE THEM. Again, it is all about making their life easy and giving them a personal reason to come back and tell their offices about your restaurant.

Once they come in, DON’T LET THEM LEAVE WITHOUT CAPTURING THEIR CONTACT INFORMATION. Ideally, you will get them enrolled in your customer rewards program right away and give them an incentive to spread the word among their associates.

Usually, marketing to pharmaceutical reps is a grass roots effort and grows through positive word of mouth and attention to detail. Listen to them, reward them and don’t let a bad experience go unrepaired. The reputation of your restaurant among the pharmaceutical rep community can spread awfully fast, both positive and negatively.

However, postcards are so cost-effective they can be a high-frequency sales building weapon. Because they are 6 times more likely to be read than a direct mail letter, they are also a high-impact weapon.

Best of all, postcards have a high recall by recipients for three reasons:

• The use of color or a picture provides a visual that is easily remembered
• Postcards are intimate by nature and are much more personal
• They are quickly noticed in the mass of daily mail

The power of postcard marketing starts with message repeatability.

One side of the card is your “billboard”. Ideally you want to print a headline that screams value – the single most important benefit you want to communicate to your customer. Adding a photo and some color with the headline is also important.

The other side can contain a message specific to an individual mailing. And you can also add a handwritten message, signature, and address to personalize your mailing. And every time you mail a postcard, your prospect sees your value statement.

A scheduled campaign is the next step. Mail one every two weeks for two months. Or mail one a month for six months. Establish a frequency that fits your product and your offer and stick with it. You’ll be top-of-mind in your prospects eyes for very little money. Postcards work well in tandem with other marketing weapons like e-mail or text messaging. In fact, it’s shown that combining direct mail with email can improve marketing results by 27% or more.

What makes postcards most powerful is when you add personalization.

With the advent of variable print technology, you can create postcards using your customers name in creative ways that are sure to capture your customer’s attention. You can have their name written on a beach, on a billboard, in a newspaper headline, on a pizza box or on football jerseys promoting a big game day promotion. Studies show that adding personalization to your postcard mailers will increase response rates by up to 40% vs. generic mass mailings.

And personalization doesn’t have to end with your customer’s name. If you have a customer loyalty program or POS system that captures customer data such as their last purchase date, most active purchase day or most popular menu item, you can incorporate that information into your postcard mailings too.

The more personalized you can make the postcard, the more effective it will be. Not only will the response rates be higher but the people who respond will spend more money. According to research by the Direct Marketing Association, consumers who respond to personalized direct mail will have a 24% higher average ticket.

So remember, to deliver an effective postcard marketing campaign be sure to:

• Personalize
• State your value
• Repeat it
• Repeat it again
• Keep doing it

On a continual and consistent basis, you have to let them know that they are part of a TEAM and they play a vital role in the success of your business.

Simply hearing your enthusiasm for your business will only take you so far. You must live this every day. Make sure they see you consistently exhibiting your high standards of guest service, exceeding customer expectations, and maintaining high food quality standards. Don’t just tell them – demonstrate it in all you do. It’s the classic adage of “Leadership by Example”. Nothing works better.

Set the Standards

Statistics show that establishing a clear, easily explained structure for duties, schedules and standards is actually preferred by the average worker. This helps them know what is expected and it also helps management evaluate performance. This starts with an Employee Manual.

Having a standard Employee Manual is a common sense business practice. It should be reviewed before an employee comes in contact with any customer. The employee should also be required to “sign off” that they have reviewed the manual with management and they understand all the information provided. This not only sends a message of responsibility on their side but it also protects you from possible legal backlash in the future.

Scheduling For Success

Labor costs are not controlled by paying low wages. They are controlled through scheduling and improving employee productivity. Productivity is increased through training, better facility layout and the use of labor saving equipment and products.

Realistic productivity standards must be established for each job category. When you’re making staff schedules, create a job slot list. This will help you determine the number of people you need, doing a particular job, at a particular time.

This list will change for different day parts or different days of the week. It’s better to start off scheduling too few employees than too many. Begin by staffing lean. The greatest portion of labor cost is a fixed expense. There is a certain “bare-bones” staff that must be on duty, just to open the doors. At this point, labor can’t be reduced without lowering standards of the operation.

The variable expense occurs while adding personnel as business increases. As productivity reaches its max, additional personnel can be added. Management remains the key element in improving employee productivity. Explaining the “why” of procedures, policies and standards will help develop positive attitudes in your employees. They don’t want to be told “what to do”, they also want to know “why it’s important”.

Invest in Your TEAM

Setting expectations for personnel to multi-task is one thing, overloading key personnel to reduce labor cost is another. It will ultimately result in the loss of quality personnel. If the goal is to have employees productive, an investment must be made in THEM. This includes training, mentoring and coaching.

Training is essential for employee success. Talk with your food distributor to work with you on product and sanitation training. Educating your staff on your offerings with food tastings and menu descriptions will give them the tools they need to sell. You can’t sell something you don’t know anything about.

Sharing and Recognition

Communication plays a big role in solidifying your TEAM. Sharing numbers about the operation that you feel comfortable with will help create a feeling of involvement. Acknowledging success stories, best practices and promotional accomplishments will encourage similar behavior.
Shift meetings are a great place to listen to feedback on issues or concerns. Make yourself available to listen to your staff when they have something to say and encourage them to communicate with each other. Sharing and communication is the foundation of any successful TEAM. The TEAM will never gel until you have this critical piece in place.

THE NUMBER ONE MOTIVATOR FOR EMPLOYEES IS APPRECIATION AND RECOGNITION.

There’s no doubt, you must have a competitive compensation package. However, the quality, work ethic, honesty, attitude and dedication of your employees will rest on the recognition of a job well done.

Offer a positive comment – even if you have to search for one – before delivering constructive criticism of any kind. They will be more receptive to your message.

Daily and weekly contests are great way to generate enthusiasm and consistent recognition. Plus, it will help you steer improvement in those areas of your restaurant that need it the most. Again, look to your food distributor for help with this. For example, if you want to encourage sales of a particular menu items or limited time offer, see if your food distributor can pull some incentives from their manufacturer reps.

Sometimes the best form of recognition is randomly catching employees in the act of great service. You can even set up a system for this. Call it RA RA! (Random Acts of Recognition and Awards).

This is a simple system of rewarding employees on the spot when they go above and beyond. It can be something as easy as a stack of gift cards or movie tickets that your manager keeps in his pocket. When a random act of great service is committed – he gives one out on the spot.

The bottom line…you can spend all the money you want on marketing to get customers in the door, but unless you have a high performance TEAM to service those customers, it’s like throwing money down the drain.

Multiplier

Multiplier is a very simple method that involves totaling the cost of the plate, and all ancillary items, and then multiplying that by 2.5, 3, 3.5 or 4. The problem with this method is it will be very inconsistent to the real dollar profit needed to be successful.

For example, a ¼ chicken plus ancillary cost is equal to $1. Multiply $1 x 3 = $3. With a $3.00 selling price you only make $2.00 over cost on that seat. You may have a $3.00 fixed cost so you lose $1.00 on that customer.
Some people use a multiplier and then add one or two dollars to the item for good measure.

Food Cost Percentage
Food cost percentage is nothing more than wanting a fixed food cost for all items. It uses the multiplier to determine what overall food cost will be

• 20% Food Cost – Multiplier is 5
• 25% Food Cost – Multiplier is 4
• 33% Food Cost – Multiplier is 3
• 50% Food Cost – Multiplier is 2

As with the multiplier system, the same problems exist. One other problem is using the same example of chicken with a multiplier of 3.

For steak with a cost of $5 x 3 = $15 selling price. Consistency in pricing is very important. Your menu should be balanced and a $12 range for entrees would not be considered well balanced.

When considering this method, remember, you take DOLLARS to the bank NOT percentages. Think through the dollar amount you charge and the volume it will generate. For example, Steaks may carry a higher food cost but typically they will deliver more gross profit dollars to the bottom line.

Competition
Gathering menus from competitors is a very popular way to price a menu. In comparison, the prices on the menu may vary greatly. The problem with this method is comparing

• Portion Size
• Quality of product
• Décor
• Service
• Overall points of difference
• Location
• Marketing
• Reputation

What the Market will Bare
What the market will bare has more to do with raising prices. Every market has a perceived idea of what each restaurant should be. We all know examples of restaurants that charge considerably more for basically the same food.
A good example is going to a baseball game and paying two or three times the normal price, because a captive audience will pay for it. The important feature to remember is to be careful and do not try to be something you’re not.

To sum up pricing, it is very important that you do not use only one of the pricing methods listed but use common sense and combine all of the pricing methods. Food cost is more directly affected by product mix than any other factor. All items must be adequately priced in order to ensure profitability.