Don't give your customers what you want

How to make sure your products will sell

Pretty confusing main title, isn't it? I'll bet you're wondering exactly what I'm talking about.

Along with the other biggest mistakes restaurants owners make, offering customers what the owner thinks is good, instead of what the customer thinks is good, is a surefire way to lose money in the restaurant business.

Here's the scenario I've seen a dozen times.

Young couple sells their house and moves to a new city
New city doesn't have restaurants offering their favorite foods from previous city
Couple decides to leverage all their assets and open a restaurant selling the fantastic food from their last city that they know everyone will love if they would just try it
Couple doesn't realize the complexity of the restaurant business, and opens up underfunded and underexperienced
No one comes to restaurant, and couple blames their vendors, their employees, their landlord and their customers for their failure
Couple loses their restaurant, still owes $100,000 to the bank, loses their home which they used as collateral for the loan, owes $500,000 for the next 10 years of the restaurant lease, files bankruptcy and spends the next 20 years paying off their debt

Pretty sad scenario, isn't it? It's very common though. As a matter of fact, failure in the restaurant business is more common than success. Studies from Cornell University, Michigan State University and Ohio State University have found that around 60% of new restaurants fail around the three year mark. Between the 5th and 10th year, closer to 70% fail. While that is no where near the long-rumored 90-% failure rate that has been unsubstantially perpetuated for years, it's still playing against the odds.

Now you're supposed to ask, "How do I beat the odds?". I'm glad you asked, and I'm going to help you past the first hurdle, and a common mistake, giving customers what YOU want, instead of what they want. Restaurant owners are notoriously egotistical. Sorry if I'm offending anyone, but it's true. I've been this same way myself. Owners have the bad habit of projecting their own tastes on their public. They think because they believe something is delicious, that everyone else will too. Some of them are right. Many of them have eclectic tastes, and find themselves to be wrong though.

Our egos tell us that if we like something, it must be good. If we really like something, and we believe ourselves to be very knowledgable about that something, then it must be great, and will make us millions if we bring it to people who haven't had it before.

The fatal flaw with this reasoning is that people who haven't had something before will not have a craving for that something. There will be no demand for that something. So, while rotisserie fired Peking Duck may have been a hot ticket in your eclectic little community in San Francisco, that doesn't mean it will be all the rage when you move to Phoenix. I know what you're thinking, "You obviously haven't tried Peking Duck, if you had, you would love it."

You may be right. Your favorite food from your last home may be fantastic. It could possibly even spurn a following in a new community, and support a restaurant, once everyone develops a taste for it. There is the kicker. How can people have a taste for something they haven't had? They can't. You can't build a following for a fantastic new dish or type of food in an area where people don't crave that food. At least not without having a huge marketing budget to give free food to ten times the people you need to sustain your business. Until someone knows what they are missing, they can't miss it, and they won't crave it.

The moral to my point is this. Don't let your emotions and your ego decide what you are going to offer your guests. You may think something is the greatest dish, or type of food, in the world, but if the people you are trying to sell it to don't know about it, it's not going to sell. Give your customers something they already want. If you don't know, conduct a survey. Ask them if they know about a particular food, if they would go to a restaurant just to get it, how far they would drive for it, and what they would pay. Let your customers determine what you are going to offer them.

Don't give your customers what you want, give them what they want.

Tags: a, choosing, creating, creative, design, emotion, ideas, items, marketing, menu, More…selections

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Comment by Brandon O'Dell on May 5, 2008 at 3:38pm: "aren't the most important"

Comment by Brandon O'Dell on May 5, 2008 at 8:00am: I wouldn't call it a "crap shoot", that's marginalizing what it is that is working. There are plenty of places with bad food that succeed, and plenty with good that don't, but that just goes to reinforce the point that the food and service are the most important aspect of running a successful restaurant. The marketing is.

Comment by Don L. Stull on May 4, 2008 at 1:49pm: I should have said "Chesapeake style" seafood. Perhaps that's the ego thing. Actually, sadly, most of the crabmeat is now foreign and pasteurized. Recent conservation efforts may be too little, too late. I didn't mean it literally but I can understand the confusion.

You are correct in that understanding the market is the most important thing. And whatever you are selling, be truthful with what you are offering. With the guys I'm working with now I insisted that we drop "backfin" from our menu description since it was so very inaccurate.

But in the end, it's all pretty much a crap shoot. Joints open that have mediocre food and service and make a killing while good food and service places barely get by.
Forgive the cynic in me coming out. I've been in front of the computer screen too long today reading great articles, broadening my education with the knowledge that, until I open my own place again, this knowledge will fall on deaf ears. Perhaps another day.

Comment by Brandon O'Dell on May 4, 2008 at 12:57pm: I won't begrudge you your ego. I think you're right, it takes some ego, at the very least a lot of self confidence to be in the restaurant business. I probably have too much ego myself. I don't think the issue is whether or not a restaurant owner has an ego though, it's whether that ego is chosing the menu items, or if they are chosen by researching the market.

Let me ask you an important question about your crab cakes and crab soup. How special is it going to be once the main ingredients are frozen and shipped to Arizona?

If you were in North Carolina, I'm sure you wouldn't dream of opening up a Chesapeake Bay style seafood restaurant that used frozen crab and shrimp. In Phoenix, you're not going to have a choice. Unless the FDA has changed the restrictions, I don't think you can ship fresh crab or shrimp from the East coast to the West. Without the fresh shellfish, is it really a Chesapeake Bay style seafood restaurant?

If logistics don't allow you to open up a seafood restaurant in Phoenix that is up to the standards of North Carolinans, then trying to do just that is counterproductive in my opinion. Pleasing people with food is about meeting or exceeding their expectations. If you tell them you are going to give them the experience of eating in a Chesapeake Bay style seafood restaurant, then can't because you can't get the same quality of seafood you can on the coast of North Carolina, you're not meeting or exceeding their expectations, ESPECIALLY if they are from North Carolina and know what fresh Chesapeake blue crab and shrimp taste like. I only see opportunity to disapoint people by claiming to do something you simply can't do in the middle of Arizona.

Now, if you open up a seafood restaurant, and serve your award winning crab cake recipe (albeit with frozen crab) without marketing it to be something it can't, then people are left to compare it to what they know, other restaurant's crab cakes. THEN you have an opportunity to meet or exceed their expectations.

You could even go so far as to claim to have the best crab cakes in Phoenix. If your recipe is that good, it's completely possible. What isn't possible to give them the same crab cakes you could give them in North Carolina.

For a pub idea, how about a sports bar with a seafood theme? You may not be able to do it "Chesapeake style", but you can still do it. People still eat seafood. I would suggest seaing (misspell intended) what fresh fish you can get into Arizona. Find out also if anything is local and popular, then offer those familiar items, in a better way, to get people in the door. Once they are in the door, then you have your opportunity to throw a little Eastern shore flair at them.

You can still make a reputation for incredible crab cakes. I just wouldn't promise the market something you logistically can't deliver.

Comment by Don L. Stull on May 4, 2008 at 12:35pm: Brandon, this post really speaks to me, past and future. I hope to move to the Phoenix area and open a Chesapeake Bay seafood style restaurant. But the past first.

In the early 80's I had an opportunity to open a restaurant in a motel in a tourist area on the Outer Banks of NC. My partner and I toured all of the local hot spots and fried seafood was all the menus offered. We just knew we would own this town. We opened with our signature sandwiches, nachos and specialty appetizers. Thank goodness we had the second liquor license just after passage of liquor by the drink. The club part of our business supported us until the second summer when we changed the menu with, you guessed it, fried seafood added to the menu. Then we got our share of the tourist business.

Fast forward to my desire to move west. The seafood we could offer may be unique to the area. I won't know until I get there. Is there a maket for my award winning She Crab Soup and the outstanding crabcakes made from Chesapeake blue crabs? The options range from the simple but well prepared fried shrimp to more exotic seafood combinations and dishes. I'm not a chef but I can cook by butt off. And I can train a staff that could educate and sell what I would offer.

I suppose once I get there and take a look around I'll know better. But isn't every menu one of what you want or what you think the customer wants? Isn't every concept an egotistical experiment? What YOU think the cutomer wants. Without the benefit of a market survey, you offer what you think will work and that is perhaps an exercise in egotism.

Restaurateurs have to have big egos to even think about getting into this business (I make room for the idiots who think it is easy, that have the money to finance their fantasy life). Heck, the picture I use can be construed as egotistical though I keep it around to remind me of the $13K I spent for my own ad idea. So, I guess I've argued myself into a corner. But it is presumptious of us to think we can offer something the general public will take to.

BTW, does anyone have a good idea for a pub somewhere in AZ?

Comment by Brandon O'Dell on May 3, 2008 at 1:31pm: Go for it Carol. Just make sure along with shrinking your menu, that you dedicate yourself to offering them the variety they crave through features that change regularly, and periodic menu changes. If you get into a routine of changing your menu every 3-4 months, you'll see that people will start to get excited about those changes, and you'll earn more repeat business as a result. Variety doesn't have to come in the form of a huge menu. The best way to offer variety is with daily or weekly features and regular menu revisions. Forget about the additional printing costs you'll incur from changing your menu regularly. You'll make it back many times with the added excited about your food. You'll also see that by keeping your menu smaller, you'll make a better margin on what you do sell.

Comment by Carol Ott on May 3, 2008 at 12:44pm: I hear all the time how someone is afraid to shrink their menu because they think they'll make their regulars mad.

This is so timely for me...

I'm thinking about shrinking the food offerings and expanding the drink menu, and I've hesitated doing so because I thought I would lose quite a few customers...and now I think it will be a good thing. Hm. Excellent food for thought...no pun intended.

Comment by Brandon O'Dell on May 3, 2008 at 11:08am: Great point Andy. I think a lot of owners let their current customers hold their creativity and practicality hostage. I hear all the time how someone is afraid to shrink their menu because they think they'll make their regulars mad. They don't realize that their relationship with their regulars goes beyond a food dish, and as long as they aren't changing that relationship, they can do what they want with their food, within reason. The customer has already demonstrated an appreciation for their food, and is more likely to appreciate a menu change, becoming more engaged instead of less.

Comment by Andy Swingley on May 3, 2008 at 6:23am: Another Brandon O'Dell superb post. I will add....

Be careful about asking the guests "in" your restaurant what they like. We sometimes find ourselves surrounding ourselves with the opinions of those already in our restaurant. Those people already like or enjoy what you have to offer. Broaden the horizons of your marketing initiatives and ask more than just your regulars. Sales can be built in many more arenas than just the four walls.