Welcome to Reservations! A show dedicated to restaurants and Marketing for them successfully.
Reality of interviewing restaurant owners today! When help doesn’t arrive who jumps in but the owner. So this interview will be rescheduled. But the show goes on.
Transcription:
Jeff Harrison [00:01]: Hey, welcome to reservations. My name is Jeff Harrison. Hey, what do you do when things unexpectedly happen as a restaurant owner? It’s not unusual for your help to not show up on time or maybe not show up at all and who picks up that slack? Well, this morning reality set in when I went to interview an owner of a restaurant here in Palm Springs and a point is, you know what his staff didn’t show up like they were supposed to. So guess who gets to pick up the slack? The owner. That’s the reality of being a small business owner, especially a restaurant because you know what the show has to go on. Hey, good morning Brian. Brian Raleigh, thanks for joining me this morning. So today I want to challenge you as you’re watching this is how do you pick up the slack and let’s face it, you as the business owner, you have ideas and schedules and things you want to have done that day or get done that day.
Jeff Harrison [00:54]: And all of a sudden when they don’t show up, what’s going to happen that takes your schedule completely out of the mix. And now it’s all about what serving your customers and does it with a smile. And that’s probably the most challenging part because it can absolutely. It can absolutely change their mood, it can change your business. But here’s the thing, if I walk into your business and I didn’t know that you’re cook didn’t show up or I didn’t know that your best server didn’t arrive, what am I gonna do? I mean I’m just expecting to be served and have a great time. So it’s up to you as the business owner to just jump in and take over and not miss a beat and act as if. So I’m curious. Hey, good morning Eric. Thanks for joining us. I appreciate that.
Jeff Harrison [01:45]: So today not only did the restaurant owner get thrown a curve, right? But us here at swing point media and reservations kind of got thrown a curve because I was expecting to interview a client and that was gonna be the show today. So for me, I have to say, okay, what else are we going to do? Well, one of the things I want to really talk about is, are you using marketing that can be trackable? And what I mean by that is I was listening to a podcast in here on the way in this morning and yeah, that’s exactly what Brian says. Hey, keep on smiling through the rain, laughing at the pain, rolling with the changes until the sun comes up. You know, Brian, hey, I don’t know that song, but I kind of know it. So you know, maybe you can come on and you’ll hum a few bars.
Jeff Harrison [02:30]: I appreciate that. So want to talk about the trackable market. Like I said, I was on my way in this morning. I was listening to a podcast by somebody I enjoy listening to. His name is Todd Hartley with video marketing mastery. He’s out of Scottsdale. I’d been on his show. He’s been on mine. He’s a great guy. Just really cutting edge. But he talked about this morning. They were talking about things like you know, in your efforts when you’re doing marketing, are your results trackable and if not then are you holding the people you’re giving the money to? They’re supposed to be doing the marketing accountable because let’s face it, just like this video, you know, we have people watching, they like it, they share it, whatever. Why can’t? Insurance doesn’t pay the bills. Right? So if somebody just walks by your restaurant and you know, stops in and says hello and then doesn’t do anything about that, does that pay the bills?
Jeff Harrison [03:20]: Absolutely not. It would be like when Andrew and I would be speaking right, and sometimes people will feel that this was like the highest compliment. We’d do a presentation and walk up and they’d say, wow, that was a great talk. We really appreciate what you did instead of one of the greatest compliments. If we were in a speaking situation and our goal was to sell a product or a service, the greatest compliment is to see people in the back getting orders. As a business owner, restaurant owner, it’s not only watching, people will look at your restaurant menu out on the front of your building, but to also see them actually look at it and then walk inside and take action. That’s the best thing. So take a look at your marketing and say, well, am I doing traditional advertising?
Jeff Harrison [04:07]: And again, this is not picking on anybody, this is just saying if I have a TV ad, how are you tracking that? Like can you tell when anybody is actually watching that TV ad? You really can’t. How about a newspaper ad? Same thing. You can’t really track if it works and yes, I know you can. You can have a coupon. They can cut out and bring it in, but really let me give you an example. Let’s say, for instance, I want to reach out to the particular owner. Good morning Amy. Good Morning Andrew. Andrew just getting back from northern Arizona, watching the kids, whatnot. So we’re flying solo this morning. But that’s okay. So let’s say for instance I wanted to talk to and I’m looking over here at Kaiser Grill is an example and I want to send a message to them specifically.
Jeff Harrison [04:49]: So let’s say I make a video and I sent it to them and maybe I send a video to 10 more people like that. Good morning. And I’ve got somebody watching here. So let’s say, for instance, I send 10 more videos out. Well, let’s put it this way. Do I know when they watched the video though? I know when they engage the answer is absolutely yes. And I know exactly who watched it and let’s say for instance, so when I sent it to Kaiser Grill that only watch it, but they, I see that seven more people within their business also watched it. Does that make me know when I talked to them when I pick up the phone, does that mean now when I pick up the phone and call them, they actually, I know that they’ve engaged with my product there.
Jeff Harrison [05:32]: They’re further along that journey. In other words, that’s the that’s the way I can tell is my marketing work. Hey, good morning Rob, appreciate you watching. Thanks for joining us. So today I just want you, and we’re going to wrap it up here pretty quickly as I just want you to look at, at where you’re spending your dollars and say, can I track when I spend a dollar? How can I tell if it’s working? Instead of at the end of the month, I spent $1,500 on a television or $1,500 on a newspaper ad at the end of the month. Can I say, Hey, this extra money that I’d made goes directly back to that? If you can’t, then there’s a problem. You’re actually wasting your money. I really do believe that you’re wasting your money. You’re not, you’re better off having a science mentor stand in front of the front of your store, spin and assign a good morning, Tanya, appreciate you joining us this morning of everything is going great in your world.
Jeff Harrison [06:28]: So how do we at swing point media for business owners we worked with restaurants, obviously. How do we help them track their information? Well, not to get real technical, but we can tell things like, hey, did they download your coupon? Did they redeem your coupon? How much money did they spend when they redeemed their coupon and then we follow up with them month after month after month, giving them new offers to come back in. By the way, when we send out emails, and I know people say, hey, email marketing is dead, but email marketing, we’re seeing somewhere around 40 to 45 percent open rate and then about a 50 percent click-through rate. What does that mean? That means now you have an audience. Hey, good morning. Give him a wave. There we go. We got a crowd growing here, folks.
Jeff Harrison [07:15]: This is it, and he’s a dancer and he’s a dancer. Hey, we’re live here. Anything can happen, right? It’s not easy to make sure these people come on at the right time. So anyway, track your information. Find out is it working or is it not working? If it’s not working, in other words, you can’t track it to define. If it is working on investigating and say, Hey, what else can I do? That’s all I’ve got this morning because this is kind of impromptu. So there was just shooting from the hip, if you will, in the meantime. That’s crippling, that was crippling Andrew. But you know what, at least he’s not afraid to get on camera. So anyway, thanks for joining us. We’ll see you again tomorrow. Isn’t that true? I didn’t know. The one thing I haven’t heard this morning, although I see a big truck over there on the left, I’ve got to stay on long enough to have a big truck come through the show because if you’ve been watching the show at any time at all, there’s always a big truck that comes through. Come on, baby. It’s Shamrock foods. Let’s see if it turns left. It’s not going to turn. I can’t believe it. We’re 0-4 today. So anyway. Hey, have a great day. We’ll see you again tomorrow on reservations. My name’s Jeff Harrison, behind, behind the camera is Andrew Mccauley. We’ll see again later. Bye. Bye.
SwingPointMedia is a marketing company focused on using content marketing, such as written articles, video and podcasts, to attract their customers ideal audiences. This approach has proven to attract higher quality customers while simultaneously reducing the sales cycle by as much as 70%.
SwingPointMedia serves local businesses in Southern California and can be reached by calling 760-422-5176.
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