Article contributed by Clive Murphy.
Having owned a restaurant and a fitness centre and now working in the self development field, I have to admit I have made some business mistakes in my time.
I was reminded of one whilst watching Gordon Ramsay in “Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares”. Gordon, a well-known chef, is asked by the restaurant owner to come into the restaurant and do what it takes to get it financially back on its feet.
After getting through all the colourful language, I found something interesting. In over 90% of the kitchens, the restaurant chef believed he was doing a great job and was cooking great food. The problem was, there were no customers and the owner was losing thousands of dollars every week. Gordon disagreed with the chef’s outlook on food.
When Gordon attempts to work with the chefs – through giving them new ideas – they seldom want to change. Mind you, Gordon can be very in your face.
It’s amazing to see a restaurant losing money, asks for a proven performer to help them and then refuses to change. Talk about the ego over-riding the need to be profitable.
Important message: if it is not working – be prepared to change it.
My partner and I used to own a restaurant in a large country town. My partner had been a chef at the Hyatt Regency and was used to cooking beautiful “modern” meals. After six months in this restaurant and close to running at a loss, we soon found out the town was not ready for this type of food.
We decided to conduct a survey. The results showed they wanted “steak and veggies” with both well cooked.
As this went against what we wanted, we had a decision to make: Do we do what we want or the town wants? We also asked ourselves whether we would like to make some money. If we went against what the town wanted, we were sure to go broke.
We constructed a new menu that was 90% “steak and veggies” and 10% modern. Not only did we start to make some money, many began to try the “modern cooked” food. Within eight months, 60% of the menu was modern cooking.
Are you giving your customers what they really want or what you think they want?
I even survey my customers in my counselling/coaching business with what I should be wearing. I went from a collar and tie to neat casual because a whopping 96% said they felt more comfortable with me dressed casually. A happier client leads to more business and more referrals. More business leads to more motivation …
Have you surveyed your customers lately?
6 comments
So true Clive – thanks for this. As they say, pride come before a fall – however it is not easy to put one’s ego to one side and to accept that there may be a better way to do something.
Thanks for sharing this,
g
I have found this to be so true. The more I listen to what my customers truely are asking for, the more successful the outcome. Trying to give them what I think they want or worse yet what I want them to have rarely works. This is such a simple message but a powerful one. It flexes one of your best sales strategys – the Art of Listening! People are not all the same and to be lumped into one category, the human race is a big melting pot of different tastes, attitudes and beliefs. If we were all the same the world would be very boring! Thanks for your insights.
Steak and veggies have never been on my menu. I guess that the decision to be middle to up market and keeping with that has paid dividends. There are more curtain stores in this town though and each fills a market. If we were the steak and veggie company we would rarely sell quail as we were not known for it. And as we already sell quail, and a lot of it I see no need for steak and veggies. Good analogy though and very thought provoking.
How timely! We are looking at setting up a franchise in Golden Bay. The Master franchise are telling us to do it there way but we are getting different feedback from the locals. This article will help us with our decision and strengthen our concerns.
Thanks Clive
Who remembers New Coke? In blind tests Pepsi always came out on top so Coke created a cola that beat pepsi in blind tastes. On the face of it when Coke released New Coke they had given the market what they wanted, a better tasting cola but of course by forcing change on consumers it destroyed their market share and within months they were forced to introduce Coke classic, the coke we drink today. The moral of the story is to ask better questions to find out what your customer really wants.
I attended a conference recently and the reminder about doing what your customers want was mentioned several times. I then went and shared this very thought last week with my chapter! Two important things for me are to actually ask your clients and be brave enough to accept their critisism in order to change, and secondly to remember that without clients there is no business!!
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