We eat with our eyes first. So, why do restaurants give us their verbal menus to order from?

Everything else

Just about everything we do in life, we always cast our eyes on the subject first. Then we make decisions.

Usually, once we've seen the subject with our eyes, we then proceed to engage our additional senses in our repertoire. This includes smell, listen, touch, and where appropriate, taste follows last.

To give you an example of what I mean and the context of our sensory engagements, let's look at the following. Something we're all very familiar with.

Scene A – Buying shoes

How often have you walked into a shoe shop and requested to see a Lined Item Catalogue listing by SKU categories, colour and pricing with different options? Hmmm, let me think. NEVER!

See

The first thing you do when you walk-in to a shoe store, you cast your eyes wide and deep, like a kid in a candy store, and you move in a direction your heart leads you.

Maybe you apply some level of sanity and approach the store left-to-right, or right-to-left, or some zig-zag pattern, but most likely your eyes do the wandering and your heart does all the pulling.

Once you've locked your eyes onto the shoes you like, you then proceed to ask to try the pair on with the right size.

Touch & Smell

Once you are handed the shoe pair, you then proceed to touch it, maybe you smell them to make sure it's real leather and not some faux pas substitute. Then, once you move on to try them, you walk a few steps and check to see how you feel in them.

Listen

If the shoes don't squeak as you walk and you're either happy with how they look, you will definitely proceed to buy them. Otherwise, you'll move on to your next choice in line.

DISCLAIMER: You may have noticed we only used 4 of the 5 senses. The last one, the taste, clearly isn't gonna work. The important part to focus on is the purchasing pattern.

Scene B – Ordering food from display cabinet

When you feel like a quick bite to eat you may duck into a takeaway place with a big display cabinet full of food.

What is the first thing you do?

"May I have your menu please?" Errrr... No, I didn't think so.

You let your eyes do the wondering, and you let your heart speak on behalf of your stomach so you can place the order.

Needless to say, once you get your item, you'll use all your other senses very naturally — touch, smell, listen, and finally taste.

All 5 senses engaged. Maximum experience!

Why do restaurants challenge us?

The very fact that we face these ordering scenarios very often, when it comes to food in restaurants, we have become so numb about the overall process that majority of us are oblivious and simply don't think about it.

Why is it that when you go shoe shopping you are not handed a line item price list catalogue before you decide which pair of shoes to buy? Shirts? Jeans? Accessories?

The power of visuals have the ability to communicate to us at 1000 words a second — yet restaurants love to impose on us to read, imagine and understand some of their verbal, word menu sorcery.

In a nut shell

Displaying photos of the food has the power to short circuit the time it takes us to place our food orders.

My suggestion to restaurants is to cut down on the words and share more of the food photos.

Invest in some time, effort and quality cameras. Or, better still, engage professionals to handle your food menu shoot.

You will engage every one of our sensory glands, and best of all, we may even order more than we can handle.

Some of us have big eyes and we want to satisfy our curiosity by ordering all of your wonderful food on offer — especially if it looks good.

The outcome will only lead to satiating our appetites and deepening of your pockets, while we hope our waistlines don't expand horizontally at the same time.

'Till next time...

Bon appetite!

FOOTNOTES

1. "Leather Shoes Display" — Photo by Dương Trần Quốc on Unsplash.
2. "Dessert Display Cabinet" — Photo by Igor Ovsyannykov on Unsplash.

You're a busy person with all sorts of things on your “to do list” that you are still working at getting done. With everything that you have on your plate, it's hard to make sure that you actually have time to, you know, fill your actual plate.

It's much easier to grab take out on the go, or pop a microwave dinner into your oven when you get home...you're thinking “who has time to eat healthy, anyway?” The answer to that question is: You do. At least, you should.

National Nutrition Week 16-22 October 2016

Eating healthy is much easier than you may be thinking, and with this week being the Australian National Nutrition Week, there's never been a better time to try, really.

If you're ready to take that plunge into a better lifestyle, here are some tips you can take with you to make things just a little easier. Thank me later :)

Eating variety is best

So, here is the nugget of nutritious living, variety is best.

If you are someone who eats nothing but apples and pears for a year, you're going to be just as unhealthy as someone who lives on fast food for the same amount of time – if not more so. You need to eat a diet that varies in its contents so that you can get all of the health benefits from the different food groups and make sure that you are getting them all in varying amounts and forms.

It may be tempting to just eat the same old food day in and day out, but you need to really stretch yourself and try to make your way around the colour wheel of fruit and vegetables so that you have a full palette of benefits waiting for you.

Embrace the rainbow

There's a logic to this, truly. In order to eat well with the variety that you're looking for, you need to make sure that you're taking on all parts of the world of fruits and vegetables. Therefore, it's a good idea to make sure that you track your progress and variety by using the different colours of the rainbow.

The best part is, it's all colour coded so it is quite easy for you to see which segments you are missing in your daily diet.

Match your health benefits to the colour

If you've been reading up on health and nutrition, or your doctor has told you that you need more of “this, that and the other thing”, you aren't alone. Take a look at the different colours and see just how much they are all going to help you in different ways.

You'll be able to really make sure that you are listening to the advice of your medical professional (or the internet) by matching the problem you are looking to solve with a colour. Let's take a look at it so we can understand it better.

QUICK DISCLAIMER: We love the work Integrative Nutrition do. Promoting health and wellness through nutrition. We also happen to like this image snippet of theirs. Hopefully they won't mind if we reference it here quickly. :)

Let's say that you know that you need more support in your heart, health-wise. You're going to want to try to bring in more foods from the red section of the rainbow such tomatoes, turnips, red capsicums. These kinds of foods are said to help strengthen your heart so that you are supporting your body where you need it most. You can target different areas with different colours, it's pretty simple, while at the same time you're reaping all the benefits to feel good overall.

You've got to admit, this is sounding better and better the more that you hear about it, right? I mean, it's so easy to do.

"We all know we should eat 5 serves of veg a day... But did you know the average person only eats half that?" -- Nutrition Australia

Take the pledge to eat more veg

With the National Nutrition Week and Try for 5 Challenge on now, use this as a motivator or event trigger to challenge yourself to eat 5 serves of vegetables every day during this National Nutrition Week! You can even join as a team with friends and colleagues and track your progress.

It's certainly a challenge if you are not used to eating in this way, but it's fun to do and you can find other people who are interested in eating healthy, too, and you'll have a team behind you, helping you make great choices.

No matter how busy you are, eating right doesn't have to be impossible. All you need to do is take a look at the colour of the rainbow, and make sure that you are putting food into your diet that spreads right across it. Before you know it, you'll be more energetic, healthier, and you won't even have to to take anything off of your “to do list”! It doesn't get much better than that!

Cover photo attribution: https://www.flickr.com/photos/nancydregan/5023325968/in/gallery-50241745@N05-72157624933219503/

Marketing is one of the most common areas neglected by a restaurant. A large number of restaurateurs tend to underperform in this area, often relying on service and food alone to carry their business. As a result, this creates a handicap and often hurts the bottom line in the long run.

Restaurant owners usually tend to focus their efforts "in the business" rather than "on the business".

Don't rely on the gods of chance

While no doubt your food and service may be impeccable, don't let the gods of chance rule over your repeat business rates. This is especially true if you may have somewhat seasonal revenues. Every food business should be able to get creative and lure customers back with some incentives, promotional offers or novel offerings.

Barrier to marketing costs are much lower now

The internet has advanced over the last decade with a lot of online tools made available at little to no cost. It would be an excuse to say you can't afford it. The only aspect that needs to be considered is a little knowledge how to go about it and settings aside some time to just do it.

3 areas to get involved in online marketing

In this post, we will highlight the key areas of online marketing you should consider. Not every aspect has equal weighting, so you may find that some things will work better than others. That said, you ought to try and experiment first before calling out final conclusions right away.

1. Website Marketing

A website is the first online tool in your arsenal. This is where customers are directly exposed to the branding, marketing and initial window to your venue experience.

Keep your site up to date at all times

It is very important that you keep your website updated at all times.

No matter what press advertises, no matter what media says, customers will always seek to go to the true source of information — your website. This is their main reference point.

Customers seek an experience

To make customers pay you a visit and make subsequent repeat visits you have to provide great food, great service and a great vibe/atmosphere. This needs to be captured on your website and can only be achieved with strong visuals supplemented by your brand, colours, look and feel.

Keep your website more visual and less verbal.

Customers visit your restaurant for the experience and this will be dictated by the service, the food and the atmosphere you provide.

To deliver an attractive yet functional website aim to have the following 7 bare necessities:

1. Venue & Food Photography
2. Menu
3. About (Your story, the team behind)
4. Contact (Opening/Closing Hours, Phone and Email details)
5. Reservations and/or Online ordering
6. Customer Testimonials
7. Newsletter subscription

We will expand on these in a separate follow on post.

2. Social Media Marketing

When Social Media initially started growing traction in Australia post-2008, a lot of businesses were not sure what they were supposed to do. Some joined out of fear of missing out, while others stood on the sidelines waiting to see what others will do. Fast forward 8 years and there is a little more clarity but still no guidebook on how to use or which social media channel is more effective than the other.

Different channels for different purpose

We will share a separate post on breaking down Social Media channels, how best to use them and where they may be effective over others. They all have their purpose or point of differentiation, but not all of them will work for everyone. You have to choose the ones where your customer base likely hangs out or prefers to communicate.

Here's a list of social media channels in order of customer adoption and greatest footprint — at least in Australia. Other countries may have stronger followings on other channels.

Primary

1. Facebook
2. Instagram

Secondary

1. Twitter
2. Pinterest
3. Google+
4. Snapchat

At the very least, a restaurant should aim to have a Facebook and an Instagram account. If one over the other had to be chosen, we would recommend Instagram as it is more visually driven and also, organic reach is better than Facebook's. As Facebook owns Instagram — time has come where organic reach is slowly being suppressed on this channel also. More on this in another post.

Online Media

1. TripAdvisor
2. Yelp
3. Google Search Listing
4. Apple Maps Listing

We feel for you, customer's shouldn't hide behind screens.

We do think and agree with you that hiding behind a computer screen is weak. Every customer should have the liberty to share their opinion while at the venue. This gives a manager on duty a chance to resolve customer's problem promptly. As opposed to a post-mortem exercise a few days later.

Use the reviews as testimonials

Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Online customer reviews are a double edge sword, however, it is better to claim your restaurant online and have the ability to respond to customer reviews with your own voice rather than choosing to ignore it. You can also use it as a research ground to see what you're doing well or find out areas where you could improve on. Don't forget, you can use feedbacks on your site as testimonials. These can be a very powerful customer accolade.

3. Email Marketing

One of the most important aspects, possibly even more important than social media side of things, is Email Marketing.

Social Media's organic reach is diminishing

The growth of Social Media channels has exploded in the last few years. To sustain their large traffic growth, each channel introduced steps to produce a revenue stream. The decision was to suppress posts by business pages, unless they opt in to pay for each post. This enables a wider audience and a further reach.

Organic reach via social media such as Facebook is declining quickly¹. In 2016 it is anywhere between 2-7%².

Take control of a channel you actually can

Don't be held hostage by respective changes in policy and usage rights of social media. You should always strive to take control over aspects you can govern. This means at the very least you should get hold of your customers' names and their contact details.

Build out your customer database

For every customer interaction you have, you should build out a customer database whether orders are made in-venue, online or 3rd party delivery companies. Seek to get their email address. This way you can share important details with them, such as News, Promotions, Loyalty incentives and other marketing initiatives.

Provide value and don't just sell all the time

Most customers will be happy to provide you with an email address, as long as you can provide them with value. Bear in mind you do not want to flood them with email either, this will have just the opposite effect. Always seek to provide useful information.

Final Wrap

Learn. Apply. Repeat.

If you have the capacity to go at it on your own and execute all of the above, then empower yourself to learn, apply and change things along the way. This should be an iterative process, meaning that you apply small incremental changes and you monitor for results. Anything you learn, feed it back into the previous steps and then repeat the process to gather new learnings. There are plenty of free resources online to learn and apply new things. You really can't run dry of reading material.

Seek help if you are stuck

If you are finding plenty of online resources technically daunting and you would much rather all of this be looked after and managed for you, feel free to reach out to us. We will likely be able to help you directly. Where we may not be able to help, we will find someone that can.

Look out for our upcoming How-To posts

In our next series of posts, we will expand each of the online marketing areas we touched on above. We will provide suggestions, examples and tools you can utilise to help you advance forward, ranging from free to paid ones.

Keep smiling and continue serving great food!

Till next time.

FOOTNOTES

Behind every great restaurant, there are 2 to 3 restaurants that really struggle. More often than not they don't even make it past the first 3 years of operation.

So what is it that separates the great achievers from the less fortunate ones?

Is it the number of Pokemon creatures they host? No, likely not!

Is it because they have deeper pockets? Maybe, but this isn't always the case nor always necessary.

Money at the onset is definitely needed to kick off into flight mode, but sooner or later the business will need to start making its own money to cover its expenses.

60%¹ of restaurants fail within the first 3 years of operation and after 5 years that number creeps up beyond 75%.

Before we proceed further, let's make a few assumptions. To run a great restaurant you need a competent restaurant operator. Their core basics should possess: a passion for food, sound money practices, great staff hiring skills and, last but not least, great personnel management skills. Without these skills, most restaurants will struggle to ensure the longevity of their business.

Great restaurants are set apart by how well they run their core three-part engine.

The three parts we are talking of are:

1. Factory
2. Services
3. Marketing.

Let's briefly cover what each of these entails.

1. Factory

The factory part is the most necessary piece of restaurant foundation required.

This is the kitchen. Without it you really wouldn't have a restaurant to start with. Its primary role is production of food while ensuring key success criteria are met along the way:

• Adequate cost control measures in place and followed.
• Usage of right ingredients for all the food prep, balancing quantity and/or quality, minimising wastage.
• Presentation of the final product i.e the food we eat.

Naturally, these are all thought of prior to an opening of a restaurant rather than randomly executed on the day.

2. Services

The services part is to do with all aspects of customer service. This is the front of the house. These are the front-liners of the business and they handle all customer interactions. They are primarily responsible for:

• Taking food orders from the customers,
• Upselling new dishes and drinks to accompany customer's meals
• Relaying the instructions to the kitchen (i.e. Factory)
• Delivering cooked food back to the customer, and finally
• Handling payments and feedback from customers on their overall experience.

Where exceptional service is rendered, customers will also tip based on their experience accordingly.

3. Marketing

The marketing part is to do with all aspects of communication with the customer, the existing and the future ones. They are responsible for:

• Product branding,
• Customer Experience Management
• Information provision for the press, media and public relations.
• Campaigning for customer's attention and their repeat business
• Promoting customer's experience on social media.

Sadly, marketing is the black swan of the industry. Very few restaurants do enough of it or any at all. Those that do are often surprised by how very little needs doing to sometimes reap large benefits.

FACTORY + SERVICES + MARKETING = RESTAURANT SUCCESS

If you omit or falter on one of these parts your restaurant may manage to survive. If you omit or falter on two of these parts your restaurant will definitely struggle and head down hill. After all getting 1 out of 3 right is no recipe to success even mathematically speaking.

Most businesses tend to get the Factory and Services part right. The Marketing part is one that most struggle with.

What's the reason behind this elusive trifecta -- especially the Marketing part? Well, there may be many. Most often it is the restaurant operator too busy working in the business and not enough on the business. It is usually an afterthought. For some it may be a deliberate avoidance tactic -- putting it in the too hard basket.

Not all restaurants can hire a marketing person as their panacea. Initial cash invested may be maxed out or the current cash flow may not allow for it.

So, what's a restaurant business to do?

Well luckily, there are a few simple things that can be implemented right away. They almost don't cost a thing, except some time for you to set aside and do it.

Check out our next blog piece. We're preparing a short list of simple marketing steps we will share with you. You can undertake these right away.

FOOTNOTES

How many times have you been to a restaurant and got stumped by what to order from a menu?

Take a look at an example below.

The Menu Challenge

This menu is not a whole lot different from any other one you would have seen.

The most common problem I find is the words describing a menu item are almost never anything like I imagine it to be. You can be a master wordsmith, but if the item does not come out like I expect it I will feel a level of disappointment.

For example, if I order a chicken salad. I know it will come out looking like a salad does, but what happens when it's finally presented. I thought I was getting enough chicken, but in the end, I found out I was under served. I would have needed double the protein serve to feel satisfied.

Since ordering food doesn't break our bank balance we are more willing and forgiving to take a gamble. If we like our experience, we seek to make a return. If not, we tend not visit the place any time soon.

The most challenging experience you'll ever get is when you travel to Asia. It's the land that eats everything with its back to the sun. When ordering food there you will almost always have to see it before you take the punt. This is where trusted source of friends or pictures are always of great help.

Seeing is believing.

The point I am trying to convey is that I wish more places would have images of their food, so we know what we're ordering. With net migration on the rise in most western countries, our choices of cuisines tend to open up correspondingly.

Let's gamble less and enjoy the food on offer by letting our eyes do the initial tasting. We will avoid disappointment a whole lot less and everyone will be happy. The restaurant owner, the service staff and their customers.

I will leave you with a depiction of a flowchart I've put together to paint the scenario of what most of us go through.

Disclaimer: I'm well aware there are different types of menus, but on average most of them are very similar. Paper based, fairly verbose and often don't paint the picture of what the food will look like.

FOOTNOTES

1. Emoji icons provided free by EmojiOne

We are an ambitious technology company looking to change the way of the status quo. We are combining modern solutions approach with the existing food'n'drinks services to deliver one heck of a tasty experience.

We want to ear mark our fresh new blog and write our first post to kick things off.

Stay tuned and we'll keep you posted on events as time unfolds.