Tag Archives: selling specials

Skills Focus: Making Recommendations

Posted on July 17, 2011 by David Hayden| 1 Comment

recommendations

(Note: This is the first of a new weekly series called “Skills Focus.”  The purpose of these posts is to revisit a skill that has been discussed on this blog.  This will allow you to take a moment and make sure you are using this skill to increase your tips.  Taking the time each week to focus on implementing these skills will help improve your income substantially.)

Making Recommendations is the key to selling food.

Over the years, a number of my guests have talked to me about coming to work for them.  I have been pitched the idea of selling everything from real estate to burial plots to adhesives to insurance.  I generally take this as a compliment on my sales skills.  I always respond with the same answer.  “I have the greatest job in sales.  People make reservations to come hear my recommendations and I close 100% of the time.  They might not always buy what I want them to, but almost everyone who sits at my table buys something.”

I don’t think I am the world’s greatest salesman.  I do think I have figured out the secret to selling food though.  I have developed a question so powerful that guests actually ask me to sell to them and then thank me for it.  It is so brilliant in its simplicity that if you are not already using it, you may be angry with yourself for not figuring it out sooner.  This is why it is the first topic to be brought up in the weekly skills focus.  It was also one of the very first posts on this blog when it began.

Skills Focus: The Most Important Phrase You Are Not Using

The reason this phrase is so effective is that it requires no sales training at all.  There are probably a couple of items on your menu that you absolutely love.  All this does is give you the opening to make recommendations to your guests about them.  It is not about using the right adjectives in the right order.  It is not suggestive selling, upselling, or any of those other forms of sales.  It is recommendations about the food you like and think your guests will enjoy.

The upside for you is tremendous.  Your guests eat great food.  You look like a hero for making the recommendations.  They see you as someone who is honestly interested in them having a great meal.  They reward you for making their meal better.  I told you this was brilliant.

 So for one week, give it a try.  Be prepared to ask the question and have a couple of items to recommend.  When a guest tries your recommendations, ask them how it was.  If they enjoy it, take credit.  Get used to using the phrase, “Is that xxx as good as I said it was?”  This is a subtle way of reminding them that you are responsible for them choosing that item.  Happy guests = better tips.  Making reccomendations will produce happy guests.

Tips2: Tips For Improving Your Tips is the new book from the author of The Hospitality Formula Network. It contains the 52 essential skills of the exceptional server. This book teaches the philosophy to turn average service into an exceptional guest experience that will rapidly increase your tips. This book shows how you can provide better customer service and dramatically improve your tips. Enter the coupon code “squared” to receive 20% off your copy today.

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The Lost Art Of Suggestive Selling

Posted on November 18, 2010 by David Hayden| 2 Comments

This will be relevant by the end of the post.

“Subtlety is the art of saying what you think and getting out of the way before it is understood.” –Anonymous

 

We as a society have really lost the power of subtlety.  It could be because we have lost the patience to unravel it.  We receive far more information on a daily basis than our ancestors a hundred years ago could even process.  Most of this information is not subtle.  It is blasted at us with bells and whistles to get our attention.  The news channels do not just report the news, they also tell us what to think about it.  Movies no longer imply that a couple is about to “make whoopee”, they show us the scenes in the trailer.  In a few generations we have gone from Marilyn Monroe standing over a vent to Britney Spears getting out of a limousine.

With all of these changes, we have forgotten what it means to be “suggestive.”  This is particularly true in restaurants.  A few decades ago, corporate restaurants determined that they wanted their servers to be sales people.  The also determined that they had no interest in paying for the training necessary to actually accomplish this.  Instead, they decided to teach their servers to use adjectives and “suggestive selling.”  One of the first posts on this blog was declaring my disdain for the overuse of adjectives.  I recently realized that I never discussed my equal dislike for the corporate restaurant incarnation of “suggestive selling.”

As with most great restaurant ideas of the last couple decades, this was based on “research.”  No one will ever accuse upper level restaurant managers of being scientists or sociologists.  When they set up this “research” they will generally have one group follow the protocol they want to introduce.  The other group will do nothing different.  When the first group produces results greater than the second, they view this as proof of success.  This result is then broadcast as fact and soon becomes conventional wisdom.  They seldom look for the actual mechanism that produces the result or how their hypothesis can be altered to produce greater results.

Before we go any further, I want to try an experiment of my own.  I will not claim it to be scientific, but I will use it for a point later on.  This is not a trick and there is no wrong answer.  In your mind, I want you to picture a glass of wine, a cocktail, and an appetizer.  Your first instinct is all that matters.  Try to remember for just a few minutes what each of those items are.  Is the wine red or white?  A particular varietal?  What appetizer and cocktail were your first responses?  Are these the ones that sound most appealing to you at this particular moment?  We will return to this point in a minute.

It is probably necessary for me to clarify what suggestive selling is and conversely what it is not.  Restaurants have inaccurately labeled any number of things as suggestive selling.  Suggestive selling is not asking a guest if they would like to add a salad or soup to their meal.  While it is making a suggestion, it is not suggestive selling.  Suggestive selling is using the power of suggestion to manifest an idea in the buyer’s mind of something they want.  People have a negative reflex towards being sold something.  They on the other hand will gladly buy something that they determined on their own that they wanted.  The art of suggestive selling is to create the idea in their mind while allowing them to take credit for the idea.

White Zinfandel, Margarita, and Chips and Salsa.  The law of averages tells me that because I picked the most common response to each of those categories I should have guessed one right for about a third of you.  Additionally, about one third of you would alter your answer because I guessed it.  Most of you I struck out on.  Let me follow up with another question.  Do any of you think my guesses are more appealing than the ones you had in your mind originally?

The commonly used statistic in restaurants is that suggesting a specific glass of wine, cocktail, or appetizer will increase the sales of that item by ten to twenty percent.  This is compared to walking up to a table and asking them, “what can I get you to drink?”  While I already discussed why the word “drink” kills sales.  I think there is a third option the “research” does not account for.  Using words that trigger a response in the minds of your guests.

When I asked you to think of those particular items earlier, you most likely picked the ones you liked most.  Just as the word “drink” produces an instinctive response, so do “wine”, “cocktail”, and “appetizer.”  While “drink” probably produces a reply of your favorite non-alcoholic beverage, the other words open up a new world of possibilities.  If when I said “cocktail” you started salivating for a Dewars and water, I would not produce the same results by recommending a top shelf margarita.  In fact a margarita was the opposite of what you were thinking and now I have labeled myself as someone who is trying to sell you something you do not want.

Suggestive selling is making subtle statements that lead people to decide on their own to buy things you want to sell.  It is not pushing particular items on them.  Letting the guest have the thought on their own makes them feel like they are in control.  It also prevents you from looking like a salesperson.  Oddly enough the mark of excellence as a server who sells is the guest not being aware that you are selling them anything.  A good server provides their guests with what they want.  A great server leads their guests to want things that they did not even know they wanted.

Other articles on how to sell more as a server:

I Make A Mean Cherry Limeade

Using Words That Sell

The Most Important Phrase You Are Not Using

Selling Away and Selling Up

How To Sell More Desserts

Tips2: Tips For Improving Your Tips is the new book from the author of The Hospitality Formula Network.  It contains the 52 essential skills of the exceptional server.  This book teaches the philosophy to turn average service into an exceptional guest experience that will rapidly increase your tips.  This book shows how you can provide better customer service and dramatically improve your tips.  Enter the coupon code “squared” to receive 20% off your copy today.

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The Rules of Serving: Rule Five

Posted on July 16, 2010 by David Hayden| 8 Comments

Rule Five: Always recommend what is in the guest’s best interest, not yours.

 

 

(Note: There are many hyperlinks today that will send you to posts were I have previously addressed specifically issues that I address in this post.)

This is the second time in two days I have sat down to write this post.  Yesterday, I got caught up in a tangent which I think serves as an important preface to this post.  It even inspired a comment immediately that proved its accuracy.  In the preface, I discuss how restaurant companies have encouraged servers to focus on upselling and thus significantly damaged the relationship between servers and their guests.

I have written extensively about selling as a server in this blog.  I have personally never had a fear of sales.  My father is in sales and I grew up reading books by Ziglar, Hopkins, and other great sales people.  I have spent most of my serving career trying to determine how to best apply their techniques to a restaurant situation.  Many servers fear selling because they feel as if they are trying to make the guest do something they do not want to do.  They are also often afraid of rejection.  In both cases, these servers give their sales skills far too much credit.

A great sales pitch does not make people do things they do not want to do.  No one can really sell ice to Eskimos.  The power of sales is helping to justify the decisions people want to make anyway.  You are not going to talk someone into something they do not want, but instead you are helping them talk themselves into what they do want.  Understanding this means that rejection is not personal and selling is not unethical, if done for the right reasons.

The part of selling as a server that puts a bad taste in the mouth of guests and servers is how it is presented.  A fellow blogger posted an example of this yesterday.  Any server who has spent time in corporate restaurants has heard a manager recite from a memo how upselling salads can increase their income.  Not only do we know that financial incentives like this do not work, but it makes the whole process seem dirty.  It encourages servers to look at the people who walk in the door as ATM machines and not guests.  No wonder servers find the whole process manipulative.

So when is it safe to sell?  It is safe to sell when what you are selling is going to make the guest happy.  My recommendations are the source of many jokes around my restaurant.  When I present the menu I sell the heck out of a couple items.  The reason is simple.  They are the best items on the menu.  My guests will have a much better experience if they order them than if they order something else.  Not all menu items are created equally.  Every menu has mediocre items on it that will disappoint guests that order them.  Part of my job is to dissuade guests from ordering dishes that I know from experience they will not like.  In this way, selling is an important part of service.

Here is a simple test to determine if you are upholding or violating rule five.  If your best friend came in for a complimentary meal, what would you recommend?  If you are recommending to your guests what you would recommend to your best friend, then you are providing a service to the guest.

You are the expert who has tasted everything on the menu.  That expertise is part of the service you provide.  You also have to stand by your recommendation.  Serving is different than sales in as that your “commission” is determined by the guest in the form of the tip.  Recommending a more expensive item that they end up disliking will hurt you by reducing your tip percentage more than they increase in the guest check can compensate for.  Conversely, a great recommendation will result in a higher percent regardless of the effect on the check.  This is because you are actually providing a higher level of service by sharing your expertise.

When it comes to upselling the line becomes a little blurred.  If you are offering premium liquor, house salads, or upgraded sides solely to increase the check, you are violating this rule.  If you are offering it because they legitimately improve the meal, you are upholding it.  I think baked potatoes taste better with cheese and bacon.  Most people seem to.  Offering these items should not be seen as offensive.  Most guests will not object to the offer.  I am intentionally using the word “offer.”  You do not sell these items as much as remind the guest that they are available.  This is not sales as much as a service.  Offering these additional items will not offend guests as long as you are not continuously doing it and they are logical additions to the meal.

Selling is a service when done properly.  The key is to do it in the guest’s best interest and not your own.  Selling items that are not in the best interest will harm you in the long run.  Lower tip percentages will defeat your best attempts to increase their bill.  Never forget that the guest determines your commission.  This can work in your favor as well though.  A guest that has a great meal is a happy guest.  You cannot make every guest order an outstanding meal, but you can try.  If you do try, your guests and your wallets will both notice the difference.

Tips2: Tips For Improving Your Tips is the new book from the author of The Hospitality Formula Network.  It contains the 52 essential skills of the exceptional server.  This book teaches the philosophy to turn average service into an exceptional guest experience that will rapidly increase your tips.  This book shows how you can provide better customer service and dramatically improve your tips.  Enter the coupon code “squared” to receive 20% off your copy today.

People Who Read This Post Also Enjoyed:

Recommended Reading 11/1 (Tips Squared)

How To Make Hostile Guests Love You (Part Two) (Tips Squared)

Weird Restaurant Stories 11/6 (Restaurant Laughs)

Independent vs Corporate Restaurant Priorities(The Manager’s Office)

Seafood During Pregnancy (Foodie Knowledge)

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Selling, Upselling, and Integrity

Posted on July 15, 2010 by tipsfortips| 12 Comments

I sat down today to write about rule five.  As I did so I realized that a preface was in order.  This morning I sat on my patio drinking coffee and reviewing the outline that I have scribbled on a legal pad. I began thinking about why this post was even necessary.  It should be common sense not to try to rip off your guests.  “Always recommend what is in the guest’s best interest, not yours” should go without saying.  Unfortunately, it directly contradicts what many servers are being encouraged to do.  So much so that even the guests know it.

I experienced this yesterday.  Waiting on a large group of teachers at lunch, I offered recommendations off the menu.  I suggested the sockeye salmon the chef was offering as his daily special.  I mentioned the flavor difference of wild caught salmon.  I discussed the life cycle, diet, and high levels of omega 3.  When I took the order, most of them chose my recommendation.  The last one looked up at me and said, “you are a great salesman, so I will have the salmon too.”  I was taken aback by this statement.  My description was more reminiscent of a teacher or a food critic than a salesman.  I did not use a “close” or try to appeal to their emotions.  I tried to sell them the best item by educating them and allowing them to make an informed decision.  My response to her was, “The difference is I will be here for the entire time you have the plate in front of you.  That is a guarantee no salesperson can make.”

Of course I was trying to sell the sockeye.  I wanted every guest who sat in my section to eat it.  It wasn’t the most expensive item on the menu, but in my opinion it was the best tasting.  I know what market prices are and it was a tremendous value.  It was what I had for lunch for the second time this week.  All of my expertise and knowledge was viewed with hostility, as the guests feared being sold something.  My integrity was being questioned by someone who had never met me, in spite of the presentation of considerable knowledge, simply because I was a server.

I have spent a great deal of time trying to determine where this hostility began.  The most logical culprit is server greed.  The flaw in this logic is that servers, and humans in general, have always been greedy. Yet for most of the history of serving waiters and waitresses still looked out for their guests’ best interests.  Instead, I think that the problem is rooted in two much more recent concepts.  Both of these ideas are commonplace in nearly every restaurant company and found in nearly every training manual.

The first wrong turn the restaurant companies took was in instituting the idea of their service staff being their sales force.  The idea of selling as a server is not new.  Great servers have always done it.  The rebranding of servers as salespeople completely shifts to primary focus of the job.  Servers should sell to help guide guests to the best possible meal and reassure them of that decision.  When the emphasis is placed on selling for the sake of increasing sales, the guest is left out of the equation.  Selling items that are not in your guest’s best interest to increase your guest check by ten percent is counter productive if they do not return to the restaurant.

The second mistake is a word that I truly despise: upsell.”  The concept of upselling is so common that guests will often point it out as it occurs.  The perception that servers are offering items just to make the check larger is well merited.  Restaurant companies encourage servers to try to get all of the extras added to a plate to increase their sales.  Guests in turn fight their servers by refusing these added items for fear of the upsell.  This is so common even drive thru windows try it with every order.  Guests are so used to it that they cringe at even the slightest hint of an upsell.

The result of these changes is guests resisting the expert advice of servers for fear of falling prey to an upsell.  Years ago some company instituted both of these ideas and the industry followed them.  In turn the integrity of a profession was traded for a temporarily higher per person average.  The perception of servers changed from helpful experts who had tasted every item on the menu to shady and unscrupulous salespeople.  The industry not only let it happen, but also openly encouraged it.

The point of this post is not simply to criticize the chain restaurants that encouraged their servers to sell out their guests to improve the bottom line.  The underlying point is to recognize why the guests do not trust us.  Understanding the reason behind this mistrust is the first step in repairing the relationship between server and guest.  In doing so we must accept responsibility for our role in creating the hostility and determine how we can change ourselves.  It is only by accepting that too often we do not look out for our guest’s best interests that we can move on to rebuilding the relationship.

With that in mind, tomorrow we can address rule five.

Tips2: Tips For Improving Your Tips is the new book from the author of The Hospitality Formula Network.  It contains the 52 essential skills of the exceptional server.  This book teaches the philosophy to turn average service into an exceptional guest experience that will rapidly increase your tips.  This book shows how you can provide better customer service and dramatically improve your tips.  Enter the coupon code “squared” to receive 20% off your copy today.

People Who Read This Post Also Enjoyed:

The Rules: Rules 1-10 (Tips Squared)

Serving Sober (Tips Squared)

How To Flirt With Your Server (Restaurant Laughs)

Understanding Restaurants: The Other Perspectives (The Manager’s Office)

Foodie Friday: Beef Made Easy (Part Three) (Foodie Knowledge)


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How To Sell More Desserts

Posted on July 7, 2010 by David Hayden| 14 Comments

I suppose I should start this post by thanking all of the servers who are still reading after my six post series on management and motivation.  I know it is a server blog, but I also recognize that a large portion of my readership is comprised of managers.  I hope those who read it found it interesting.  I promise to stick to server information for the next few days.   Today I wanted to come up with a big payoff for those that stuck with me through the series.

Today is one of my most loyal readers birthdays.  I noticed this and decided to dedicate a post to her for her birthday.  Becky was the first person I met as a result of this blog.  This is actually her second mention in the blog.  As I thought about what to write about in her honor, a light bulb went off.  In honor of one of the sweetest people I know, a post about desserts is in order.  I can’t buy her a free dessert, but I can write a free post about one.  So for Becky, I am for the second time digging into the folder titled “book” and posting some previously written material on desserts.

Let’s be honest.  If chocolate, cheesecake, and apple pie were healthy, calorie free, and provided you with all your daily vitamins and minerals, would you ever eat a salad?  Most people like steaks, salads, and pastas, but they love dessert.  Yet most servers will sell far more entrees than desserts.  Your guests come to the table with a great number of expectations and beliefs.  One of the most common beliefs is that ordering dessert is gluttonous or wasteful.  While you should not try to change that belief, you can always take a shot at being an exception to it.

Selling desserts is about exploiting the contradiction between what the guest feels they should do and what they want to do.  Buying a dessert is an emotional decision rather than a logical one.  You have to make the dessert appeal to their senses.  You have to instill the belief that the pleasure they will receive will outweigh any guilt they may feel afterwards.

In order to capitalize on these emotions to sell desserts, keep in mind the following concepts.

Ambush and Assume: Once you have cleared the table following entrees, you have the opportunity to get their attention for your last pitch.  You want to bring any visuals of the desserts you have to the table.  Dessert trays and menus should be used as props, but the sale is made through your words.  Approach the table as if you are going to find out what desserts they want, not if they are going to have dessert.  This will overcome their first line of defense.  When you describe your favorite desserts, use as many sensory words as possible.  You should be painting a picture in their mind of not just the ingredients and appearance, but also the tastes and texture.  Your confidence and presentation must e strong enough to temporarily overwhelm their intellectual predispositions.

Dessert To Go: This is one of the most lucrative tips in this book.  Always look for and suggest opportunities to take dessert to go.  If a pair of young parents is out celebrating their anniversary, offer a piece of cake for the babysitter.  After a business dinner runs late, offer to box up the signature dessert to take to their spouse.  Even if a guest is full, a piece of piece of pie might hit the spot later.  Know what desserts travel well and don’t require refrigeration.  These sales take very little effort and time and can increase a check considerably.

Complete the Course: When a guest does order dessert, you have opened up a wide array of opportunities for additional sales.  If a guest is going to remain at your table while their dessert is being made and eaten, you need to take as many shots as possible to keep them spending money.  The easiest and most overlooked way to do this is to offer a coffee, cappuccino, espresso, or latte.  How about a shot in that drink?  Would they enjoy an after dinner drink or aperitif?  Would their dessert be better alamode?  Sales opportunities abound, look for them.

Selling desserts effectively requires a unique set of skills.  As you practice them, they should become second nature.  The casualness that you approach selling desserts with will get you past their instant rejection reaction. When you are past that, it all comes down to your descriptions and follow up.  The meal is not finished after entrees, and your tip should not be either.

Tips2: Tips For Improving Your Tips is the new book from the author of The Hospitality Formula Network.  It contains the 52 essential skills of the exceptional server.  This book teaches the philosophy to turn average service into an exceptional guest experience that will rapidly increase your tips.  This book shows how you can provide better customer service and dramatically improve your tips.  Enter the coupon code “squared” to receive 20% off your copy today.

People Who Read This Post Also Enjoyed:

The Rules of Serving: Rules One and Two (Tips Squared)

Refuting Emmer’s Myths (Tips Squared)

My Response: 25 Things Chefs Never Tell You (Restaurant Laughs)

Supply, Demand, and Chicken Wings (The Manager’s Office)

Foodie Friday: Salmon Basics (Foodie Knowledge)

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